


Kiss the Ground so You Can Fly

by hukkasiipi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: How to Train Your Dragon AU, Keith is... something else, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Lance is a viking, M/M, Slow Build, and he likes to draw, but i hope this wont burn anyone, especially in the beginning, some langst i guess, though i changes how the dragons work a bit, wonder what that could be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 62,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hukkasiipi/pseuds/hukkasiipi
Summary: Dragon attacks were a usual trouble in the village of Arus. Nobody knew where they came from or where they went afterwards, but the fact remained that every month or so the village would get raided by a hungry flock of dragons planning to steal their sheep. Planning, but often not succeeding. The Vikings were an angry and headstrong bunch and had developed many, many ways to fight off the attackers. There were special weapons, guard towers, alarm systems, and, most importantly, the dragon fighters.It had always been a dream of Lance's to become a dragon fighter, of course it had. Who didn't want to kill dragons? The idea of being able to protect his family, friends, and the village he loved so much had always felt comforting to him. All of the most amazing and respected Vikings had been dragon fighters, and Lance craved respect and attention. He couldn't help but be infatuated by the idea of becoming one of the heroes.Then he met someone special and things changed.





	1. Who the heck is this idiot who just shot me?

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone was wondering this is an au based on the movies, not the books (though those are fun too). You don't technically need to have watched the movies to read this but some things might be a bit confusing then. Also, I know putting large amounts of world-building and exposition in the beginning of a story is definitely not a good way to grab interest but here we are anyway. This chapter kind of needs that to set up the story.
> 
> Happy reading!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was wondering this is an au based on the movies, not the books (though those are fun too). You don't technically need to have watched the movies to read this but some things might be a bit confusing then. Also, I know putting large amounts of world-building and exposition in the beginning of a story is definitely not a good way to grab interest but here we are anyway. This chapter kind of needs that to set up the story.
> 
> Happy reading!!

Lance tried to suppress a yawn and majorly failed. He had hardly gotten a wink of sleep last night, and he was Tired. He glanced up at Hunk who was happily hammering something on a scorpion and humming to himself. Lance repositioned his sketchpad on his lap and started doodling a figure of his friend. He made sure to add Hunks big muscles and gave it a big smile that ended up ruining the figure's entire face. Whoops. 

The two of them had been tasked with repairing one of the village's scorpions that had gotten damaged during a dragon attack a few days ago. Since Hunk was far more proficient in weapons (and everything else, he had that apprenticeship at the forge, after all) construction, he was doing most of the job. And by most Lance meant pretty much everything. But both of them knew that should Lance try to help the whole tower the scorpion was in would probably collapse and destroy a roof on its way down anyway. That was what had happened last time. Luckily he had been able to convince the chief that it hadn't been their (his) fault but a broken supporting pillar's. In reality, the pillar had only broken down after Lance had cut a wrong rope and brought the whole thing crashing down.

Those details were too minuscule to take note of. 

Even though they had made it without any punishment to speak of (Pidge had said that the chief had probably been too busy to see through Lance's lies) neither Lance nor Hunk wanted to risk repeating the accident. Lance did believe that his charisma and immaculate skills of persuasion could save them (him) again if need be, but he had graciously let Hunk take charge from then on. Also, Hunk had made him promise to let the mechanic do everything lest Lance's magical touch destroy everything again. Hunk was good at making Lance promise things to him, and only a monster would break a promise to Hunk. Lance didn't mind the arrangement they had fallen into, he had never been one for mechanics anyway.

Hunk stopped humming and waved a hand at Lance's direction to catch his attention. "Hey, hand me a wrench, please." Hunk was currently balancing on a shaky-looking ladder about a meter above Lance's head. His enormous toolbox sat at the foot of the ladder, just out of Lance's reach. 

Lance set down his journal and pulled himself up. He stretched and trotted to the box. A wrench, a wrench. There were like a million knick knacks in there, how was he supposed to know which was which? He picked up something at random and placed it in the hand Hunk had extended behind himself. "Here."

Hunk hummed thanks and went to wrench (?) something but stopped suddenly, the wrench (?) hovering still above the broken scorpion. He twisted around to look at Lance. "Umm, Lance?"

Lance did his best to school his expression down. He cocked a hip to the side nonchalantly. "What's up, big man?"

Hunk was starting to look mildly concerned. "Lance, this is a chisel."

Lance blinked. Whoops. "That's what you said, though."

Hunk opened his mouth to say something but seemed to decide otherwise before the words made it out of his mouth. He furrowed his thick eyebrows and seemed so honestly confused that Lance couldn't help cracking up. A giggle bubbled out of his mouth.

Hunk caught on at that point. He groaned. "Lance, gosh. I got worried for a second."

Lance cackled. "Okay, but your face right then..." He plucked the chisel (the more you know!) out of hunk's hand and shot his best friend a grin.

Hunk smiled and shook his head in defeat. "Someday I'll learn," he muttered to himself. "I still need that wrench though."

"Sure sure. But you'll have to tell me which it is first."

"Lance, c'mon. That's like the most basic thing."

 

***

 

It only took Hunk about fifteen minutes after that to finish up with the repairs. Lance cheered as he jumped down from the ladder and clapped his hands together. They picked up after themselves together (Lance helped with this part, see?) and did their best to haul Hunk's toolbox down from the guard tower without dropping on anyone's head. It was a success, but only barely.

As the two of them were power walking away from the angry man who had almost gotten his skull bashed in by a box Lance yawned. Again. That's what you get from worrying about stupid things all night long for no reason.

Hunk cast him a curious glance. "You okay there, bud? You seem tired. Like really tired. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm tired too, but what's up?"

Lance grimaced inwardly. He hated making his friends worry. Especially since it wasn't anything special or new he had been worrying about. "Dunno. Couldn't really sleep last night."

Hunk glanced at him. "Oh. Why not?"

Oh, why indeed? Lance shrugged. "Just, y'know, stuff." He made a vague hand gesture.

"Dragon stuff?" Damn, Hunk knew him too well. Of course he'd immediately guess what Lance had been mulling over. Lance made a noncommittal noise.

"It's fine, don't worry about it. Just had a bad night, it happens," he tried to reassure Hunk. It was true. Mostly. He had been having "bad nights" more often lately, but Hunk didn't need to know that. The guy had plenty enough on his plate already, with his apprenticeship and all.

Hunk pursed his lips together, and Lance got a feeling this conversation wouldn't be over as soon as he'd hoped for it to be. Luckily his growling stomach came to the rescue. Lance thanked the gods above and also his past self for not eating properly at lunch. A bit dramatic, maybe, but he had to keep up the signature Lance McClain flair. 

Hunk could never stand seeing someone go hungry, and Lance was all about using that as a way to get out if the conversation. "Also, I'm like suuper hungry right now. Let's get your box back where it belongs and go eat. We'll drag Pidge out of their cave, too."

Hunk caved and nodded, just like Lance knew he would. "Yeah, okay. Let's go. I'm starving too."

As the two made their way to the forge Hunk had his apprenticeship at Lance filled the air with mindless chatter. He managed to get several laughs out of Hunk, which lessened his guilt for making his friend worry. Not all of it disappeared, though. That never happened.

 

***

 

"The dragon stuff," as Hunk had put it, was kind of an important deal for the Vikings. Always had been. Dragon attacks were a usual trouble in the village of Arus. Nobody knew where they came from or where they went afterwards, but the fact remained that every month or so the village would get raided by a hungry flock of dragons planning to steal their sheep. Planning, but often not succeeding. The Vikings were angry and headstrong and had developed many, many ways to fight off the attackers over the years.

There were weapons specialised for dragon fighting, guard towers, alarm systems, and, most importantly, the dragon fighters. Arus wouldn't have needed that many warriors if it the dragons hadn't existed. The island the village was on was a lot further to the north than most other Viking settlements, so it wasn't like they needed anyone to protect the village from other humans. Or anything else, really. Except for the dragons, of course.

The dragon fighters were, in Lance's humble opinion, awesome. Every year ten or so teenagers were accepted to a dragon training program where the village's best warriors would teach them the ways of the war. After about six months of training, the best cadet of the bunch got a chance to kill their first dragon in front of the entire village. It was an annual and well-liked tradition on Arus. After the training the new fighters swore to protect the village and its inhabitants with their lives.

It had always been a dream of Lance's to become a dragon fighter, of course it had. Who didn't want to kill dragons? (Hunk and Pidge didn't want to kill dragons but they were nerds so it didn't count.) (Okay, Lance was a nerd too but not as much as them.) The idea of being able to protect his family and friends and the village he loved so much had always felt comforting to him. Also, all of the most amazing and respected Vikings had been dragon fighters, and Lance craved respect and attention.

Lance had been planning on becoming a fighter ever since he had been a little kid. There was only one problem that he had run into when he actually tried, though. Despite having tried three years in a row now, he still hadn't been accepted into the program. There was always someone stronger or faster or overall better than him who got the spot first.

The constant rejection had started to sting. A certain fear often crawled up his spine at night, making him lose sleep over it. A fear that he'd never achieve his dream. That he'd never achieve anything. A fear that he'd keep disappointing his family until they just gave up on him.

Lance didn't let the fear deter him. He had doubled his efforts. He had spent hours and hours honing his skills with the bow until his fingers were permanently bloody. He kept spying on the ongoing training lessons, jotting down notes and learning ways to fight on his own. And, he had eventually figured, the best way to prove he was worthy of fighting dragons was, obviously, to kill a dragon. So he was going to do that, on his own if he had to. He was getting there. Slowly.

 

***

 

They never ended up finding Pidge that day. She had been neither at her house nor in her lab thingy by the forge. That was not all that surprising though, as ever since her father and brother's disappearance a year ago she had been a bit... off. She had taken into locking herself away from the world and would sometimes have gone hours or even days without eating had Hunk and Lance not been there to drag her outside.

Sometimes she seemed to disappear from the face of the Erath. Like now, for example. Neither Lance, Hunk nor her mother had any idea where she went during those times. Lance thought she was probably working on super weapons against dragons or, alternatively, world domination. Both scenarios were equally plausible.

The sun was already well on its way down when Lance and Hunk trudged their way through the village to the dining hall. The village of Arus resided on the southern coast of an island creatively also called Arus. Their village was one of the biggest Viking settlements around that part of the ocean, Lance had heard. They didn't get that many visitors from outside so he couldn't really check.

Arus (the village) was built around its main docs situated at the crook of a small bay called "The Bay". (Vikings sure were a creative bunch.) All the important buildings, such as the town hall and the dining hall Lance and Hunk were heading to now, were huddled around the docs, and the rest of the village spanned outwards from there.To the east were most of the village's sheep pastures and fields.

As the Vikings got most of their food from the sea most the island was left to its own devices. Arus (the island) was huge but the Vikings never strayed far from the southern coast. To the west of the village there were woods which nobody ever went to. To the north there were more woods and huge ass mountain called Jotun which nobody ever went to. Everybody said there was nothing of interest there but Lance ad no idea how they knew that since, y'know, _nobody ever went there_. He had always thought it was stupid how the Vikings acted like they were some kind of great explorers but didn't even know what was on most of their own island.

He and Hunk had made many adventures to the forest when they had been small and had always gotten heavily reprimanded for it by their parents. They had been told that there might be dangerous dragons there, which had worked on Hunk but not Lance. It had had the opposite effect than they had hoped for, actually. There had been many times when Lance had armed himself with a toy bow and dragged an unwilling Hunk to the woods to hunt dragons.

They hadn't done that in years. Nowadays Lance just went hunting for rabbits and stuff every now and then. One time he had shot a deer.

When Lance and Hunk finally arrived in the dining hall both of their stomachs were screaming in hunger. The official dinner time had long since passed so the hall was mostly empty when Lance pushed open the large wooden doors leading inside. He was met with the comforting smells of fresh bread and candle wax and the happy crackling logs in the the open fireplace in the center of the hall.

Lance breathed in the warm air. The dining hall was one of his favorite buildings in the village. Not only because there was always food there (though that was a big reason) but also because it always felt so welcoming there. It was a place for everybody to enjoy and for socialization. It was a happy place.

Arriving late meant that the dinner had had plenty of time to cool down. As they took their meals to the stove for reheating Lance glanced at Hunk. A small grin made its way up to his face. His friend looked like his soul was weeping.

Hunk hated reheating food because “It’s so wrong, you’re supposed to eat when it’s ready the first time. Why would you decide to cook it _again_? It ruins the taste, and that’s rude toward the cook, too!” Lance and Pidge always made endless fun of his culinary obsessions. Lance snickered and Hunk sent him a deathly glare, though Lance could see a smile tugging at his lips too.

After getting their food warmed up the two sat down at their usual table at one end of the hall and began eating. Lance was chomping on his fish eagerly. He really had been starving. Hunk was more picky, grumbling something about the ripeness of the reheated meat under his breath.

The atmosphere would have been more or less calm had the shrill sound of an alarm horn not reverberated through the building about three minutes after they had sat down. A series of shouts echoed from outside and everyone at the dining hall froze.

“Dragons, dragon attack!”

Lance and Hunk shot up from their seats, meals forgotten. Well then.

 

***

 

Somehow Hunk managed to disappear while they were running toward the origins of the shouting. Well, it was more like Lance disappeared as Hunk was the one with an actual agenda during these situations. Even though neither of them was qualified to actually fight, Hunk was needed help in lifting things and such. Lance had been deemed useless at that with his noodle arms. His job was fire management, which, while important, was nowhere near as cool as what everyone else was doing.

Fire management was what Lance was  _supposed_ to be doing but he had other ideas. Mainly, get his bow and then find a dragon to kill. Shouldn't be that hard. 

Lance was booting toward his house to get his bow. He had two, one for normal use and one specifically designed by Pidge to shoot dragons. It had longer reach and shot special arrows that would pierce the dragon's scales. He hadn't tested the bow against a dragon yet but he was sure it would work. Pidge had made it, after all. Maybe today would really be the day.

The village was in chaos. Lance counted at least eight dragons on his short way home from the dining hall. Because he was peering at the sky he was too late to notice the huge body rushing toward him. Lance knocked into Takashi Shirogane, the village's greatest warrior and one of the main instructors of the dragon program, and went toppling to the ground.

Shiro pulled him up by his arm and continued rushing forward, too busy to stop to talk. Lance realised too late that it had probably looked like he was running home to hide, but it was far too late to explain himself now when Shiro was already about ten meters away.

Lance sped up and vowed to always carry his bow with him from now on. Like a proper Viking. It was embarrassing if he had to first run home when danger appeared. Besides, if he was too slow all the dragons would already be taken.

Lance arrived at his house panting and quickly barreled up the stairs. His younger brother, Marco, yelped as he slammed the door open. He was sitting at the dining table, their family dog Bernard trembling in his lap.

"Take care of the house!" Lance ordered as he rushed back down, now holding his bow and a quiver of arrows.

He was already out the door when Marco was able to find his tongue. He rushed to the doorway after Lance. "Wait, where are you going? LANCE!" Lance snickered as he left Marco behind. For some reason he felt more filled with optimism than he had in a long time. This was his night, no one could stop him now.

Lance booted out of his house and immediately headed up the small hill it was nestled under. His house was right at the edge of the village, forest beginning practically from their backyard. The hill would make a great vantage point to shoot from.

When he reached the top of the hill Lance took in the scene in front of him. It was a mess. There were about a dozen dragons wreaking havoc in front of him and even more further away. One of the guard towers was on fire already, though it did make it easier to spot the flying monsters screaming bloody murder. Lance realised it was the exact same tower he and Hunk had been repairing earlier. He watched as a part of it came loose and crashed through a roof under it. Dang. So much for that repair mission. At least it hadn’t been his fault this time.

None of the terror he could see in front of him quite reached the hill though. It was like a calm point in the middle of a raging ocean, removed from all the action. Lance breathed in the brisk night air and readied his bow. He could have sworn he could hear a grasshopper chirping by his feet. A soft summer breeze graced his hair and messed it up. Lance drifted his eyes over the scene in the village. He had to find his first target.

Lance more felt than heard the blast coming from behind him. A sudden wave of heat flashed over him as a small red fireball sailed over his head. It seemed to hit its target precisely, as it utterly annihilated a cannon down in the village. Lance whipped around and gulped.

There, about fifteen meters from him, was a dragon. The lights from the village didn't reach it completely, so it was rendered to just a dark shape against the trees of the forest behind it. The only thing Lance could see clearly were its two glowing eyes that reflected the reds and yellows of the fires behind him. The dragon was flapping its wings rapidly, trying to stay stationary in the air. It seemed to be pondering over its next move.

Lance jumped slightly when the dragon spat out another red bolt. The bolt whirled over his head hit something in the village with a small explosion. Lance chastised himself. He had lost focus for a moment.

It seemed that the dragon hadn't seen him yet. Lance's breathing quickened. This was his chance! He would kill a dragon today. Lance raised his bow. He only had one shot before the dragon would notice him but that was fine. He was a sharpshooter, he wouldn't miss. Lance took a deep breath and readied drew his bow, ready to shoot.

Time seemed to stop as the dragon's eyes suddenly locked with his. Even from a distance, Lance could see them widening in surprise. Lance felt his insides freeze, but only for a split second.

He jolted and shot his arrow. He didn't have time to see if it had hit or not since as soon as it saw him shoot the dragon spat out another fireball. Only this time it was aimed at Lance. And it was coming fast.

Lance shrieked and instinctively brought the bow up to protect his face. Magically he managed to hit the fireball and avoid having his face melted. His hands weren't as lucky. Even though the (now useless) bow had taken the brunt of the damage some of the blast had reached his hands. It hurt. A lot.

Lance didn't spare the dragon another look before spinning around. The ways to handle dragonfire burns were hammered into the heads of all Viking children from a young age. Lance knew he had to make it to a water source quickly if he wanted the damage to not be permanent. Judging by how much it hurt, he had to make it very fast. Very, _very_  fast. He sprinted, leaving the (possibly hurt, possible in top condition as the shot had been kind of terrible) dragon behind.

Dammit.

 

***

 

Lance had never been a particularly picky person. He prided himself on being able to deal with most things, coming from a big family and all. Still, being stuck with his hands in an ugly rainwater barrel while what seemed to be the population of the entire village walked past was not one of his top moments.

First, he had had to wait for the others to finish up with the dragon business. That part could have been a lot more embarrassing, actually, since no one had had time to look around and laugh at a doofus stuck by a bucket. They had been fighting dragons. He hadn't. The time for laughter would still come though, Lance was sure of that.

Now he was watching as the villagers got the situation under control. A few dragons were captured, a couple more killed. Some had gotten away, but Lance had only been able to spot one that was carrying something. A very unlucky sheep, to be exact. The buildings had taken a heavy beating once again, and several houses were still ablaze. Many cannons and scorpions had been burnt beyond repair. People were hustling and bustling everywhere, but it didn't seem like there had been any serious injuries.

Besides Lance's hands, of course. But even then, most of the damage was to his pride. He could already see people casting him pitying looks which was honestly worse than laughter in his mind. He tried his best to stuff the feelings of failure out of his head. He'd do it next time for sure. If there was one thing Lance was good at it was not giving up. Lance’s father often told him he was more obstinate than a dragon. He didn’t mean it in a good sense but Lance took pride in it nonetheless.

A girl bit older than him stopped by and asked if he needed help.  Lance shot her a smirk and opened his mouth to say something cool but soon realised it was hard to look impressive with one's hands stuck in a rainwater bucket. Still, no harm in trying. The girl rolled her eyes and told him to drag his ass to the infirmary. She hurried off without giving him another glance and Lance pouted to himself. Should’ve killed that dragon.

He was awakened from his thoughts as Hunk came jogging toward him. Lance saw the moment his eyes reached his hands and worry swept over his face.

Lance leaned against the barrel lazily. “Whaddup, big man?” He asked, trying to feign nonchalance.

Didn’t stop Hunk from worrying.

 

***

 

It didn't take long for the village to come down from a dragon attack. The Vikings were used to them and the chaos they left behind by now. On the morning of the following day repairs were already well in process and the village was lively as ever.

Lance was sitting on a bench in the town square, doodling in his journal. He was supposed to be watching over the twins right now, which he was. Kind of. He was keeping an eye on them while they were running around with their dog Bernard. Keeping only one eye on two hectic children and one overexcited dog was maybe not the best solution out there but Lance had felt like drawing. And as every artist knows, when the itch comes you've got to scratch it. Even if you've got dragonfire burns on your hands.

The twins, Veronica and Luis, were five years old and in their absolute prime, it seemed. They were constantly on the move, kind of like Lance, actually. The only times the twins were still was when they had run out of energy and where literally unable to move. Lance had been like that as a kid. Even now the only times he was really sitting still were when he was knitting or drawing. Or sleeping. Sleeping was good.

Lance glanced up from his journal, and yup, everyone was still alive. He looked back down and frowned. It was a sketch of the dragon from last night. Which meant it was very bad as he had been unable to see most of the dragon. It had just been a blurry shape. Except for the eyes… Lance added the eyes, though it was hard to make them seem like they glowed when all he had to draw with was charcoal. Honestly, the whole picture was kind of garbage at this point so Lance decided to give up on it. He didn't know why he had decided to draw it in the first place, as e didn't even know what it looked like.

What kind of dragon _had_ it been? He was pretty sure it hadn’t been any of the usual species that the Vikings saw regularly. Now, he wasn’t an expert on different types of dragons but he hadn’t seen anything that even resembled it before… Then again, he hadn’t even seen the damn thing so it was kind of useless to be debating this.

Lance sighed and closed his journal. The inspiration was gone.

 

***

 

A bit later, when Lance was relieved from his babysitting duties (thank you, Marco), he was sitting at the lunch hall with Pidge and Hunk. Pidge was fuming.

“My experiment got destroyed. I’d spent  _da_ _ys_ building that and now it’s all gone. I hate those goddamn lizards!”

Hunk tried to console her: “I’m sure you’ll be able to re—”

“ _Don’t_ , Hunk!” Pidge angrily shoveled food into their mouth. Lance shared a sympathetic glance with Hunk. There was no helping when Pidge got mad about dragons. They despised them. Well, every Viking did, but Pidge had better reasons than most. Lance could understand them but they did go a bit overboard with it sometimes. Like now, for example. Who even yelled at Hunk?

“I think I might have hit one yesterday,” Lance told them to break the tension. “With the bow thingy you made. It was too dark to actually see if I hit or not, though. Oh, also the bow kind of… um.”

“Wait,” Hunk said and set a hand on the table. “is that how you got your hands hurt? You were trying to get one again.” Lance was about to answer him but a vicious growl coming from across the table stopped him.

Pidge was glaring daggers at him. “What about my long distance bow prototype, which I _borrowed_ you for shooting practise and testing,” they bellowed. “What about the bow, Lance?”

Lance scratched his neck. Whelp. “Ahem. Well, it was either the bow or my face, you see. And,” he motioned toward his face with his left hand, “you cannot destroy this gorgeous creation, can you?”

“ _Destroy!?_ ”

“Well. You gave me it for testing and I tested it. Did you know that wood burns if it’s hit with dragonfire? Science sure is amazing isn’t it?” Lance grinned when Pidge buried their face in their hands and groaned loudly.

Lance pressed his palms together. “Actually, can you make me another one, Pidge. It was a super good bow and I think I actually might have hit one with it so—”

“No.” Lance stopped talking at Hunk’s flat statement. Both he and Pidge turned to give Hunk a confused look. Hunk coughed into his hand. “I mean. Is that really a good idea, Lance? I know you’re good at shooting and all but this is like the fourth time you’ve got yourself hurt in three months trying to hunt dragons. Like, I’m not saying you couldn’t eventually do it but… Isn’t there anything else? You just seem really hung up on this thing, is all I’m saying.”

Lance's mood took a historical plummet. He knew Hunk was only trying to help but that had not been the right thing to say. Because there wasn't. There wasn't anything else Lance could think of doing, and that was the problem he had been battling with for months. Dragon fighting had been his dream for so long that he couldn't even begin to imagine himself doing anything else. Besides, trying to think about other options felt like he was giving up on his dream. And he wasn't doing that. Ugh.

Lance sighed, long and deep, to collect his thoughts. He didn't want to bother his friends with this. He’d have to come up with something to lessen Hunk’s worries. Something believable. “But I want to fight dragons,” he said. Excellent.

Hunk and Pidge shared a glance. Great, even Pidge had noticed and they were usually about as observant about human emotions as a wet shoelace. Lance could sense an impending Talk coming. That was not on his list of things he was interested in doing right now. Uuugh.

" _Anyway_ ," he drawled and slapped his hands on the table, “I’m all finished. Let’s do something! Do you guys have any ideas, because if you don’t, I sure do.” Another shared glance between his friends. Lance pouted. “C’moooon!”

Pidge shrugged, obviously leaving the decision to Hunk who sighed. “Okay. Shay mentioned this awesome blueberry place by her sheep pastures. I’m planning on trying this new recipe I made up which needs those. We could go pick up some?”

Honestly, he didn’t even need to ask. Both Lance and Pidge would walk to Hel and back for Hunk’s cooking. As Pidge snuck into the kitchens to steal buckets Hunk turned to Lance again. “Lance,” he said, and Lance grimaced. This was Hunk’s serious voice, reserved for serious conversations about serious topics.

Lance pinched his lips into a tight smile. “Yeah?”

Hunk placed a hand on his shoulder. “Can you take a break with the dragon thing for a while. At least until your hands are healed. We can figure something out together after that. Pidge will help, too.”

Lance stared into Hunk’s kind eyes and something tightened in his throat. He had been stupid to think Hunk wouldn’t see that something was wrong. They had been best friends for over ten years. And during that time when had Hunk ever been wrong? Lance sighed. Maybe he should just give up. It wasn’t like he actually believed he could do anything anymore, was it? He had failed one too many times.

“Okay,” Lance sighed. Something felt lighter in his chest as he said it. Huh.

Hunk wrapped him in a hug. “Promise?” he whispered into Lance’s ear.

“Promise,” Lance answered, and if he held Hunk a bit longer than strictly necessary, neither of them said a word about it. It would be better this way.

 

***

 

Lance was a liar and a vow breaker and should feel terrible about his entire existence. That would have to come later though, as right now he was on a mission.

After Hunk, Pidge and his extremely successful (thank you, Shay) blueberry haul the other two had both had things to do. Hunk had apparently promised to be at the forge by noon, and Pidge had claimed she had research to do, whatever that meant. That had left Lance with a whole afternoon with nothing to do. He had decided there was plenty of time to squeeze a short hunting trip into his (empty) schedule.

He hadn't exactly planned to come here but the way to his usual hunting grounds just happened to pass by the hill next to his house. (Probably because it was right next to his house.) And _maybe_ Lance had got a little bit off his usual way to check out the place where he had shot at the dragon. And then walked to where the dragon had been. And now he was staring at a few innocent black droplets glittering on the ground, a plan already formulating in his head.

First of all, he had actually hit the dragon. For real. He, Lance McClain had successfully shot and hit an actual dragon with his bow. Fucking finally. And now the dragon was lurking somewhere in the forest, wounded and just waiting for Lance to catch it. Tracking a dragon was known to be one of the most difficult tasks, as dragons could indeed fly and thus left no traces whatsoever when they moved. Lance had always taken pride in his tracking skills, however, and he was sure he could do it.

Also, there was a trail of black splatters leading to the forest, easy to spot once you knew it was there.

A grin spread on Lance's face. He could track it, he could still do this. He still had hope of becoming a dragon fighter. It was like the universe had handed him this chance on a silver platter after it had seen him doubting himself. Excitement welled up in Lance's chest. Sorry, Hunk, but he wouldn't waste a chance like this.

Lance jogged several meters toward the forest. Even though they were smaller, the blood splatters continued here as well. The trail went on, easy to follow. Clutching his bow Lance took into the forest. He was determined to do this today. There had been far too many setbacks lately, so many that he had almost given up. But this was his day, he could feel it. 

Now that he knew to look for them, the splatters weren't difficult to see. They were obvious against the bright green grass. Lance knew it would get harder to spot them when he got deeper into the forest, where there would be a lot more shrubbery and vegetation. He wasn't going to let that hinder him, though. Hunting was one of the things he was at least decent at. He knew he absolutely could do this. He wouldn’t waste his second chance. He couldn’t.

Lance had been jogging about half an hour when he began reassessing the situation. Maybe he had been a tad too hasty to just leave like that. He was equipped for a normal, non-dragon involving hunting trip, which meant that he was severely lacking in supplies. He was only carrying a bow and a knife and no food whatsoever. 

Well, he reasoned, it was too late to turn back now anyway. The dragon was injured so he’d do fine with the weapons he had. He’d just… sneak up on it or something. Lance may have been ambitious but he was in no way stupid. He knew he couldn’t take down a dragon if it was attacking him head-on. Though this dragon _had_ been pretty small…

How far could an injured dragon even get by itself? Pretty far, it seemed. Lance grumbled. The trail was leading him in a gentle curve. If he had known where it was going he could have saved at least fifteen minutes of the trip. The whole thing stroke him as a little odd, though. He knew the dragon had been flying since there were no markings on the ground besides the blood. But the blood wouldn’t have been here had it not been flying close to the ground, under the treetops at least. Wouldn't it have been easier to fly higher where there were no obstacles? Especially if it was injured. Maybe it was trying to stay hidden or something. 

Lance smirked. That plan had backfired pretty badly.

About five minutes later Lance noticed something new. By now he had made it to a part of the island east of the village called Rat's Fur forest. The Vikings didn't go there often since there were better hunting grounds in the north and the shore here was far too steep for boats.

The forest here was nice though, Lance noted with curiosity. The trees were older and ganglier than the ones he was used to, but they still looked freshly green and healthy. The shrubbery was comfortable to walk amongst too, and there were raspberry bushes everywhere. Lance even noticed signs of some large game here and there. He would definitely come hunt here in the future.

As he was jumping over a small creek he noticed something off with one of the trees nearby. A young birch tree growing next to the creek was badly damaged, as if something heavy had crashed through it. Something heavy and approximately dragon-sized. Lance grinned. If the dragon had crashed here it was bound to be close by.

Lance readied his bow and crouched. He started creeping down the creekside, keeping his ears open to the smallest of sounds. Soon enough the forest gave way to a small clearing, the creek running into a small pond on the opposite edge of it. There was a large boulder by the pond, and there, next to the boulder, was the dragon.

Lance could feel his pulse pick up. The dragon seemed to be asleep, curled into a dark shape against the vibrant summer grass. Lance could pick up the shape rising and lowering in even cycles so he knew it wasn’t dead. Yet. It seemed to be breathing pretty heavily, though, was it in pain? Lance shook his head quickly, that hardly mattered when it was about to die anyway.

He raised his bow but decided to get closer first. He had to maximize his chances, and for that he needed to be close enough to be able to make the dragon’s head from its legs. It wouldn’t die if he shot its tail or something. It would be good to know where its current wound was, too. Just in case things went bad.

Lance decided to sneak around the clearing to the side where the dragon was closer to the forest. He readied his bow, just in case, and started crawling as silently as he could.

When he reached his ideal spot he peered at the dragon again. He was finally close enough to make out some details. This one was a bit smaller than the ones that tended to attack the village. He had been right about it being an unusual species too. The dragon was colored mostly black but Lance could see red markings here and there that he had been unable to notice before. The thing was curled in such a way that Lance still had a hard time trying to make sense of its general shape but it seemed like it had four legs and two wings. And a long tail with two red fin-like flaps at the end.

Now he could also see the wound clearly. He had aimed to kill it back in the village but the surprise had thrown him off. Now the arrow was sticking off one of its hind legs. It was obvious that the dragon had tried to rub it off but failed miserably. It seemed it had only made the situation worse. Lance grimaced at the sight of the wound. He was used to seeing blood while hunting but such a painful looking mess still made him a bit queasy.

Lance took a deep breath and raised his bow. This was it.

Suddenly the dragon's head snapped up and Lance felt his insides freeze. He found himself helplessly staring at a pair of yellow eyes that widened in surprise as they spotted him. Lance was transfixed by the sight, unable to move a muscle. He had never looked a dragon in the eyes like this. It was... odd.

Both of them remained still as statues, Lance standing in the shrubbery, bow halfway raised, the dragon curled up on the ground. Seconds ticked by but Lance couldn't break out of the staredown. The eyes in front of him felt intelligent and deep, unwavering in their gaze.

Finally, the dragon moved its eyes away, and Lance felt as if his breath had been released. He took in a gulp of air and stared as the dragon slowly got to its feet. It grimaced as some weight was put on its wounded leg. Golden eyes found his once again but only for the time it took for the dragon to hiss at him angrily. Then it turned away and started walking to the opposite direction of him, as if he wasn’t worth paying any more attention to. Walking was obviously painful for it but it only stopped when it reached the other end of the clearing. Then it curled into a ball again, never sparing a single look in his direction.

Lance's blood started to boil. The thing wasn’t scared of him at all! First everyone at the village, and now even the dragons were sure he couldn’t harm them! The dragon only seemed to see him as an irritation, not dangerous in any way but annoying enough to walk on its wounded leg to get away from. That hit a tad too close to home for Lance. 

Lance showed the budding feelings of self-deprecation and dejection away and turned to fury. Did this thing really think it could just ignore him? Throwing all caution to the wind he stood up from the bushes and yelled: “Hey, asshole, look at me!” No reaction. “Oh, so you think you’re too good to even spare a look? Well, guess what?” he marched to the clearing. “I’ll make you look at me.”

This time the dragon glanced at him, annoyance clear on its face. It looked away quickly, probably expecting Lance to leave if he didn't get a reaction out of it. Ha, as if.

Lance seethed.  “Oh, is that how we are doing this, you stinky bastard? I’m here to kill you, just so you know, so you’d better start paying attention to me right about now.”

The dragon snorted. It honest to the gods snorted. Lance gawked at it. The thing was laughing at him! “Do you _really_ think you can laugh at me? I’m holding a bow to your head!” As he was saying it Lance realised he had lowered the bow when he had stood up, and it was now uselessly hanging by his side. “Or I could be. If I wanted to!”

The dragon snorted again but this time it turned into a grimace halfway through when it accidentally jostled its leg. It growled in frustration.

Lance glanced at the wound again. It looked bad. Very bad. “You suck at first aid, you know that,” he told the dragon for some reason. “Everyone knows you’re supposed to get the arrow out so it can heal. I don’t know what your goal has been there but I’ll tell you, that ain’t how it’s done.”

Lance had no idea what he was doing. He was supposed to be killing the but… It seemed so much… less evil monster-y now that he could see it in bright daylight. It was curled up on the soft grass and obviously in pain. Besides, it hadn’t even tried to attack him once. Was it because it was injured?

The dragon peered at its wound and then moved its gaze to the bow loosely hanging in Lance’s hand. It narrowed its eyes at him and Lance got a distinct feeling that it was blaming him.

“Hey, you only have yourself to blame. Next time don’t go spitting fireballs at someone else’s village if you don’t wanna get shot.” And now he was defending himself for shooting a dragon. To a dragon. Great. The thing probably didn't even understand him. It was an animal.

The dragon huffed and rolled its eyes. It was such a humanlike gesture that Lance got chills running down his back. It started inching away again.

Lance huffed. “Well, if I’m _that_ annoying why don’t you just jump into the pond or something. I assure you I won’t follow you there. Might do good to wash your wound too. That was a tip since you apparently have no idea how first aid works.” He went to cross his arms but had forgotten he was holding a bow. What he ended up doing instead was some sort of awkward both handed half-wave.

The dragon turned to look at the pond and looked contemplative. It took a few seconds for Lance’s brain to catch up and then his jaw dropped. He hadn’t made any motion toward the pond as he’d said that. He was sure of that. Which would mean… Which meant the dragon _could_ understand him. Perfectly.

Lance had assumed it had been picking up his tone of voice and expressions to grasp his meaning before and answered to those with its well-placed eye-rolls. Kind of like a dog or something. But that wasn’t it. That wasn't it at all. It understood _words._ What the actual fuck?

Lance wheezed and the dragon turned to look at him with exasperation clear on its face. ‘ _What weird noises is he making now?’_ it seemed to be thinking. Lance didn’t have time to concentrate on that right now. His world was falling apart. This was wrong. This was all terribly wrong. Dragon were _animals_ , malicious ones. They weren’t supposed to be smart. _They weren’t supposed to understand human speech._ They were supposed to be bloodthirsty monsters, that was what every young Viking was taught.

This one though… This one was thinking. Could they all do that? Lance go ta terrible feeling in his gut. All this time… How did no one know? No, it had to be just this one. There was no way all dragons were like this. Right?

Lance bow hit the ground with a quiet thunk and snapped him out of his stupor. The dragon followed its fall with its eyes and then raised them back to Lance’s face. It seemed confused about his sudden shutdown. Lance could relate, he was confused too.

The moment the bow hit the ground he absolutely knew he wasn’t going to kill this dragon. He probably wasn’t going to kill any dragon. Ever. He could kill animals fine but a creature with the potential to be as smart and… human as this one… A creature that could kill him right now if it wanted, _should_ be killing him right now according to every Viking ever, but for some reason wasn’t doing anything of the sort. He couldn’t. And if all of them were like this...

Which meant... Everyone had been right in their assumptions. Lance was the worst Viking to ever viking. He couldn't kill a dragon. 

Lance promptly sat on the ground and dropped his head in his hands. How could he go home after this? After years of boasting and bragging, the first chance he got to prove himself he instantly chickened out. He was a disappointment to his family and friends. He was a disappointment to the entire village. He was useless at everything. His bow seemed to be laughing at him from the ground next to him. He felt a sudden urge to toss it into the pond.

Lance was broken out of his downward spiral by an odd chirping noise. He raised his head and found himself face to face with a dragon that seemed all kinds of done with his bullshit. The whole situation was utterly ridiculous, Lance realised. Here he was, sitting on the ground in front of the dragon he was supposed to be hunting, nearly in tears.

He let out a sudden laugh and the dragon jumped like a startled cat. It gave Lance another of its annoyed glances, which, honestly, were starting to lose their power by now. “I’m okay,” Lance croaked. His voice sounded horrible. Good grief, what was up with this situation?

The dragon huffed and Lance’s gaze wandered back to its leg. He sighed. If he wasn't going to kill it, he might as well help it. “But you’re not. Let me get that arrow out for you.”

The dragon gave him a dubious glance but didn’t move back when Lance got to his feet an approached it. Lance could get why it was suspicious of him, he was the one who had put the arrow there in the first place. Actually, he wondered if it knew that. It had been pretty dark in the village when he had shot it. Lance didn’t think he would be this nice toward someone who had shot him himself, so… Yeah, it probably wasn’t aware.

He put out a show stretching his shoulders. “Yep. I don’t think I’m going to kill you after all, so I might as well help. I’m such a considerate person, you see. You should count yourself lucky!” The dragon grumbled, clearly unimpressed, but it did turn its leg toward Lance. “Eager, aren’t we? Don’t worry, everyone would be eager to get a piece of this guy.” Or to get rid of a literal arrow sticking out of their body. Either way was fine.

Lance inched closer to the dragon. It had seemed uninterested in harming him thus far, but, well, it was still a dragon. A dragon with sharp claws and teeth and a power to burn him to dust in about a minute.

Carefully, he extended out a hand. The dragon had its head turned his way, heedful of his every move. Lance took a deep breath and gingerly placed his fingertips on the dragon’s side. He could see a shiver run through its body at the touch. It didn’t move though. Or bite his head off. That was good.

Lance ran his finger over the dragon’s scales. They were warmer than he had expected. Lance found himself smiling at that thought. Of course they were warm, this was a damned dragon! A sudden burst of exhilaration ran through his body. He was touching a dragon! A real living dragon who wasn’t in a cage of any sort or trying to kill him. Was he the first Viking to ever do that?

The dragon hissed, and Lance realised he had been stupidly grinning by himself for several moments now. He flashed a smile at the dragon, whose eyes widened in surprise. It seemed this guy wasn’t used to smiles. No wonder, since it seemed to permanently be frowning. (Or whatever the dragon version of frowning was.) Although having an arrow sticking out of its leg could have been a reason for the cranky mood. “Okay okay, I’ll get on with it already.”

Lance scanned the wound and came to the conclusion that his best plan of action would be to just… jank the arrow out. There wasn’t really anything he could do to make it easier. Somehow the wound was still open and slowly dripping, which Lance reasoned to be good as the arrow would probably come out easier this way. He really should have paid better attention when his parents were trying to teach him first aid. Though he was pretty sure dragon bodies didn’t work the same way as humans did.

Lance took in a deep breath through his nose. Blood and pain had never been his forté. Hunting was fine since he was a good enough shot to make sure the animals died in one hit. When the wounded thing was alive in pain though… He had a hard time handling it. Still, some things just had to be done. (Because helping a dragon was obviously something he was obligated to do, right? He decided not to dwell on that.)

“Okay. Here I go. Ready?” The dragon let out an affirmative noise and Lance gulped. “Alright. Here goes. Three, two, one, go!” Lance pulled the arrow out in one swift move. The dragon let out a pained grunt but still remained from mauling off his face. That was obviously a plus.

Lance tossed the bloody arrow over his shoulder and turned to peer at the wound. The bleeding had intensified. How much blood could dragons lose before it was life-threatening? Because this one had lost a lot by now.

He turned to look at the thing’s face. It had its eyes closed and was breathing heavily. Must have hurt. Must still hurt. “You okay there, buddy?” Lance tentatively asked. The dragon opened one eye and glanced at him. It seemed too tired to answer. Lance turned back to the bleeding wound. Might as well do something about that as well.

He pulled of his tunic, only to realise his hands were completely covered in dragon blood. Great. Hopefully it would wash off. He removed his undershirt too, and shuffled the tunic back on. He weighed the shirt in his hands, unsure if the dragon wanted to be touched again. It had its eyes closed and Lance was not fond of the idea to surprise a dragon, no matter how injured it might have been.

He must have made some sort of a contemplative noise as the dragon blinked up at him again. “I’m gonna, you know,” Lance motioned to the shirt, “put this on your wound to stop the bleeding. It’s gonna hurt.”

The dragon looked at the shirt and crinkled its nose. Lance was confused. “What?” The dragon sniffed and did it again. Lance gaped. “Excuuuse me? Here I am, sacrificing my precious clothes for you out of the goodness of my dear heart, and you dare tell me I smell bad? This is beyond rude. Shame on you!”

The dragon started making an odd chirping noise. It took Lance a minute to realise it must have been laughing. He couldn’t help but break into a lopsided grin too. Then he realised that the other was still very much bleeding, and hastily pressed the shirt to the wound. The dragon yelped. “Sorry, sorry,” Lance mumbled.

He stood there for a while. All of this felt very odd, like the clearing and the dragon were from some kind of a dream or a different reality. A reality where Lance wasn’t a Viking, designated to kill dragons. It was… kind of a nice thought, actually. There was no anger or hate in that reality, only a grinning boy and a dragon. Preferably the dragon wouldn’t be bleeding in that universe, either.

Lance quickly shook his head. What was he thinking? That was stupid, and completely delusional. There was no way that would ever happen. And it wasn’t even like this dragon was actually nice. It had been attacking the village just like the rest of them! It had seemed so nice this far, though… No, its natural killing instincts must have been dulled by the pain or something. That, or it had been smart enough to predict that Lance would help it if it played nice.

Something sharp twinged in Lance’s gut. That must have been it. The dragon had been acting friendly to make Lance work for its own purposes. Hadn’t it been laughing and snorting at him the whole time? It probably hated him. Why wouldn’t it, even if it didn’t know it was Lance who had shot it in the first place it must have known that had been someone from Lance’s village. He wasn’t allowed to feel good about helping the dragon, he realised. It wasn’t generosity he was showing. It was his responsibility as the one who had hurt it in the first place.

Lance wondered again if all dragons were secretly this intelligent or if was just this one. How would he even find out? Lance sighed. Hunk and Pidge probably could come up with a way, but it wasn’t like he could ever tell them. Or anyone, for that matter. He had already been a big enough disappointment, no need to add helping one of their mortal enemies to the list. What would he even tell them when he got back? _“Hey, you know how I’ve been vowing to kill a dragon all this time? About that…”_ It wasn’t like Pidge’s family had very possibly been killed by dragons or anything. This was a mess.

Lance started to ponder over his plans for the future. He had always been so fixated on dragon hunting that he hadn’t really considered other options. What was he even good at? Well, he could draw decently but that wasn’t really any use for anyone. Maybe he could become a knitter or something. That seemed like a dull future but at least he would be useful. He was sure the two ladies running the tailoring workshop would happily take him in.

Once again, the dragon awakened him from his thoughts. It seemed to be good at that. It shifted its leg carefully, making Lance jump in the process. It seemed satisfied with something so Lance figured it didn’t hurt as much anymore. He recalled someone saying something about dragons’ quick recovery processes at some point. It had been more of a _“those damn things just won’t die”_ sort of thing than a positive comment though.

Lance removed the shirt and was pleased to note that the wound had stopped bleeding. No kidding about those recovery powers, then. That had been a deep… cut? Hole? Whatever it was called when an arrow left a wound. It was far from healed though, it just didn’t bleed anymore.

Lance stepped away. “Well, there you go. I don’t know anything about dragons, or healing, for that matter, but I’d say don’t fly in a while. You lost a lot of blood.” His voice was colder than before. The dragon gave him an odd look. It didn’t do anything to show thankfulness, of course it didn’t. It probably wasn’t even capable of having those emotions at all. “I’ll be going then.” He tried to make his voice as even as possible. “You’re good to go. I’m leaving, I’ve got things to do.” He didn’t. He had nothing to do. Today, or in life in general.

The dragon seemed slightly confused by his sudden change in demeanor but it didn’t protest as he started to walk away. It still didn’t thank him, and Lance tried his best not to let that get to him. The dragon had nothing to thank him for in the first place, in fact he was the one who should be apologizing. He didn’t. It was a dragon. If they ever saw each other again they would most likely try to murder each other. That was how it was, with Vikings and dragons.

When Lance was completely hidden by the shrubbery again he stopped and allowed himself one last look back. The dragon was slowly limping towards the huge boulder. When it reached its destination it curled into a tight ball. Lance was unable to make out its head or its legs anymore, just a curl covered by dark wings.

Lance turned his back to the clearing, none of this had happened.

 

***

 

That night Lance had trouble sleeping again. This time it wasn't because he kept worrying about his failing dragon fighter career, though. This time it was because his head was so full of questions that his brain was unable to shut down. He couldn't get the dragon from the forest disappear from his thoughts. Every time he closed his eyes it was there, the yellow eyes popped up from the darkness and stared into his soul, demanding attention. Lance decided he hated those eyes. They were so needy.

After about an hour of uselessly twisting and turning in his sheets, Lance gave up. He kicked his blanket to the floor in protest. Then he was cold so he had to fetch it back. Lance wrapped the blanket around himself and sat on the edge of his bed. What now? There were too many thoughts swirling around in his head to make any sense of.

Lance let his eyes wander around the room and spotted his journal on the nightstand. Might as well do a Pidge and write his thoughts down. Lance grabbed the book and opened it to a new page.

His earlier drawing of the dragon peered at him from the previous page. There were those goddamn eyes again. Looking at the drawing now after seeing the thing properly made Lance snort. It hardly looked like the real thing at all. He'd have to make a better drawing soon. Well, he didn't  _have_ to. That was stupid. He didn't have to do anything at all!

Who was he kidding, he knew he was going to draw it again sooner or later.

Not right now, though. Lance went to reach for his pen, which was not on the nightstand where he had left it. Lance sighed. Every. Single. Time. Maybe he should tie a string to the thing and attach it to his journal. Lance glanced around the floor of his room and, lo and behold, there it was, innocently lying several meters from the nightstand.

Lance tried to reach it with his toes but he could tell it was a useless effort right from the start. Ugh. The floor was freezing, where had the summer gone? Lance whined as he stepped off the bed. With two quick leaps he reached the pen and then, after having snatched it up, dove back to under his covers.

Then, finally, he laid the pen on the page and wrote.

_Questions:_

_\- Why was the forest dragon different from the other dragons?_  
_\- What kind of dragon is it?_  
_\- Do all dragons understand ~~humanese~~ human speaking_  
_\- Why didn't it attack?_  
_- ~~Why~~ How smart is it?_  
_\- Is any of this important?_

Lance put the pen down. This was stupid and wasn't going to help at all. But he knew he had to find the answers.

It was weird how much this was bothering him. Before yesterday the most important thing on his radar had been to get accepted into the dragon fighting program. This felt much, much more significant. More significant than pretty much anything he had done before. But why?

Lance wished he could talk about this with someone, mainly his friends. But he knew he couldn’t. He wouldn’t be taken seriously. None of them had seen what he had seen, and even if they believed him they’d just try to hunt the dragon down. Pretty much every Viking in the village had lost so much for the dragons. People had died. Pidge’s brother and father were missing. Shiro had returned with his arm gone. Hunk’s grandfather had died.

He couldn’t tell them. He was just getting tired of lying. But he had to find out. That dragon had been different, and Lance needed to know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super lazy about doing research so I just gave the Vikings roman scorpions for weapons. In my defense googling "what weapons would vikings use against dragons" doesn't really work. I also didn't really do any medical research at all beforehand so... At one point i was trying to find out what an arrow wound is called and the first article that popped up was basically "NEVER pull an arrow out of your body EVER" so good job there Lance. That was an article written for humans though so maybe it doesn't apply here. If anyone can link me any good scientifically accurate articles about dragon health that would be cool.
> 
> Anyway, my first language definitely isnt english so i would really appreciate y'all pointing out any mistakes in the comments. Especially if i make the same mistake multiple times because that can be very annoying to read (I also want to learn).
> 
> There will be more keith stuff next chapter i promise!!


	2. Who the heck is this idiot who keeps prancing around like he owns the place?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing is fun 'cause sometimes you find sentences like "Something was had made its way to his chest."

“Good mooorning, Pidgeon.” Lance singed and placed his bowl of breakfast porridge opposite of Pidge's. She had a journal open next to her own bowl and was intently scribbling something down in it. She didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way so he leaned over and prodded her in the cheek with his spoon. “Hello? Anyone there? This is Lance from Arus, I have lost contact with my dear friend. I repeat–”

Pidge smacked his spoon away. “Shut up, Lance. I’m trying to concentrate.” She sounded annoyed but Lance could tell she was trying to suppress a smile. He snickered which caused Pidge to finally look up from her book. She glared at him in mock anger.

Lance took in the mighty bags under her eyes and concluded that she had probably been up most of the night if not all. She had most likely been working on her… something. He took peek at her journal. The pages were filled up with messily scribbled numbers and diagrams, and, frankly, Lance couldn't understand anything he saw there. He doubted he would have even if her handwriting had been legible. “What’s up? Preparing your weapon for world domination?” He gestured toward the book.

“Nah,” Pidge hummed. “Just this island. I’m devising a new way to predict dragon attacks. It seems like they have increased by about two per five years during the last thirty years, though my data is severely lacking. Anyway, I’m composing a model that–” She stopped when Lance started snickering.

“Neeeerd.”

Pidge blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Well, duh. I’m a scientist. Eat your porridge, it’s getting cold. Hunk would be ashamed if he saw you right now.”

“Same to you, Pidgeon. Or have you forgotten about your own breakfast right there?” Lance motioned to her porridge which was sadly sitting on the table, already cold. Pidge looked down and seemed to be genuinely surprised to see it. She had.

They both started shovelling food into their mouths. Pidge made grossed out faces while trying to swallow her nasty cold porridge. Lance would’ve just reheated it but Pidge wasn’t that kind of a person. According to her, she had better things to do than to worry about the state of her food when it wouldn't taste good anyway. This distressed Hunk immensely.

Lance found his eyes drifting back to Pidge’s book and was suddenly hit with an idea. If he really wanted to find out as much as he could about the dragon from yesterday (and he did), asking Pidge for help would be the best place to start. She was a pro at all kinds of research. He couldn’t tell her the exact reason he was looking for information, but he could ask about something. It would be a good start. Would he dare? She was smart, would she see through his lies?

Just a little bit. He would ask just a little bit because, honestly, he had no ideas about where to look and he needed to know. “Ummm, Pidge?”

Pidge hummed in response and took a deep gulp of water from her cup. Lance briefly worried she was going to suffocate with how long she seemed to be swallowing water but Pidge had always had an incredible lung capacity. He hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth again. He would have to bring the topic up smoothly.

“So you have done a lot of research about dragons, right?”

Pidge set her now empty cup down with a thunk. She gave Lance a suspicious glance. “Yeah, why?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Didn’t you promise Hunk you’d take a break with the dragon thing?”

Lance blinked. Pidge hadn’t been there when he had promised that, had she? He frowned.“How do you know about that?”

Pidge fixed him with an incredibly unnerving stare. “I’m a scientist, I know everything.” Was that how science worked? Amazing. Maybe Lance should consider becoming a scientist, too. Though he wasn’t nearly good enough at– “So why do you ask?” Pidge interrupted his thought process.

Lance blinked. Oh, right. Dragons. “I was just thinking… Do you know what is like, the smartest kind of dragon there is? How intelligent are they, generally speaking?” He did his best to mask the slight tension in his voice. It wouldn’t have worked with Hunk but Pidge was far worse at picking up social cues.

She frowned and thought for a moment. “I mean, smart how? I think they are more intelligent than, say, dogs but I don’t know if anyone had ever looked into that.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know, that was kind of a suspicious question. What are you doing?”

Lance laughed. It only sounded slightly fake. “Ahhh, I’m just curious, y’know. Looking into new things? You’re a scientist, you know how it is. Anyway, where do you think I would be able to find more information? About dragons and intelligence, I mean?”

Pidge hummed in thought and scribbled something new into her notebook. Lance hoped it wasn’t something about him or suspicious action patterns on human teenagers. “I’d try the library first, obviously,” she said and looked up at him. “I’m glad you’re into research now or whatever, but what are you going to do with that information? I’d think you’d be more into the ways to fight dragons, not studies about their intelligence. Although I suppose it would be useful chart out their abilities more thoroughly than we have done thus far…”

Lance nodded vigorously. Yes, good. He could use this. “Yeah, exactly. I figured I’d try to find more weaknesses in their… psyche? Or whatever. Since I’ve got a lot of free time now that I’m on probation and all. Know your enemy and all that jazz, am I right?” His jazz hands went seriously underappreciated. Hunk would have laughed.

Pidge nodded. She seemed a bit surprised at Lance’s words. “I’m pretty sure you have no idea what you’re talking about but that might not be a bad idea at all. I might actually look into that myself…”

“ _Hey!_ This is  _my_ research topic, go get your own, _thief!_ ”

She snorted. “Sure, sure. I’m busy with my stuff at the moment anyway. Tell me if you find anything interesting?”

Lance got up from his chair and saluted. “Sure thing, Pidgeon. Off to the library I go.”

 

***

 

The village’s library was on the second floor of the town hall. Lance had to sneak past chief Allura holding council with Shiro and a few other of her best warriors to get there. Were they planning another hunting trip again?

It wasn’t like he technically wasn’t allowed in the town hall, the building was open to everybody in the village, but it would surely raise some eyebrows if he suddenly appeared there. He had only been in the building a few times in his life, and never on the second floor. To be honest, the entire building projected an air of him not belonging there. It was an important building for important people, not for a random kid like him.

Lance ascended the staircase and peeked around the hallway he found himself in. He knew that the second floor hosted a storage space for other important stuff along with the library, both of them kept by a weird guy called Coran. It was a bit weird that Lance had never talked to the man in person since he was familiar with most of the villagers, but Coran had always been hard to miss on the streets anyway, given his bright orange hair and moustache.

Lance peeked through the first open doorway to his right. He supposed the large room held the library, as it was full of bookshelves, but it didn’t seem like Coran was there at the moment. With the number of books the room seemed to have he was sure there would be some to tell him about the dragon in the forest. Surely  _someone_ had seen one like it before and bothered to write it down.

Lance stepped in and looked around the room. In addition to the bookshelves, there were many tables with all kinds of stuff on them. The room’s walls were decorated with old weaponry. One in particular, a large ornate bow, caught Lance’s attention. He walked to it and marvelled at the fine details carved into the wood. There tiny flowers and detailed dragons dancing along the bow’s surface. It was gorgeous.

“That, my boy, is a bow that belonged to chief Alfor, chief Allura’s father. You like it, I presume? It is quite a magnificent creation, if I dare say so myself,” a voice suddenly spoke into his ear.

Lance let out an ungodly shriek and swung around, fists ready to defend. There, right behind him, was none other than Coran the librarian, moustache shining brilliantly in the fading sunlight coming through the windows. Lance opened his mouth but no sound came out. His heartbeat was going through the roof. Coran had somehow snuck in without making a single sound. The scare had almost made him black out. Where the heck had the guy come from?  

Coran chuckled. “Did a cat get your tongue, boy? There is one here somewhere, actually. I call her Daisy. She is such a splendid creature, yes. Don’t tell the chief though, will you?” He winked.

“Ummmm,” said Lance. At least it was better than gaping silently like a fish. What the heck was this man?

“Why yes, I don’t think we’ve met,” Coran continued as if Lance wasn’t terribly failing at the most basic type of human interaction, talking. Coran grabbed his right hand and shook it vigorously. “My name is Coran. I take care of the library and the artefacts here, as well as many other things,” He winked again. Lance was pretty sure that was not the correct time to wink. “It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

Lance magicked a smile to his face. “I’m Lance. And, um, likewise.” He shook Coran’s hand back which caused the entire handshake to end up uncomfortably long. What was with him and being normal lately?

When the handshake of doom finally ended Coran moved his hand to lazily stroke his moustache. Lance found himself weirdly hypnotised by the action. “So tell me, what brings you here today, Lance?”

Lance hesitated. Would this be a weird thing to ask? Well, whatever, he had nothing to lose. And Coran didn’t seem like the type to judge. The dude had a glowing moustache! “I’m looking for texts about dragons,” he announced.

Coran hummed in thought and twirled his moustache. “Ah, I see. We do have many of those. You’re looking for hunting tips, I presume. Everyone wants those but not many will delve into the world of books these days. Let me tell you about this one time when–”

“Not hunting tips, exactly,” Lance corrected hastily. It seemed like Coran’s story would go on forever if he gave the man a chance to begin. Coran raised a questioning eyebrow and waited for Lance to continue. Lance wrung his hands together nervously. “Actually, I was thinking more about… general knowledge. You know, their habits and anatomy and any research done on them. And stuff.” He finished with a winning smile and hoped that Coran wouldn’t ask too many questions. He probably should have come up with some excuses before coming here.

Coran blinked in surprise, clearly not having expected the words. He gave Lance a curious once-over and clapped his hands together in excitement. “How unexpected! Most people are so keen on the killing side of those creatures that they hardly care for their other magnificent aspects. Follow me, I’ll get you something.”

Lance followed as Coran sauntered to an old oaken shelf toward the back of the room. After careful consideration, Coran picked out two old-looking tomes for him.

“Not that I don’t trust you, my boy, but I cannot allow you to take these books outside with you. We only have single copies, you see.”

Lance eyed the books curiously. Neither of them was too heavy-looking, but both were incredibly dusty. They also would have looked very suspicious had Lance been to take and read them somewhere outside, as they looked nothing like what he usually read. (Which was nothing. He usually read nothing.) Reading them inside the library would’ve been the best solution anyway.

“No worries,” Lance smiled. “Is there a desk or something I can use?”

Coran promptly walked to a heavily cluttered desk by a large window and swiped nearly everything on it to the floor in one, clean motion. Lance gaped. “I thought those were unique historical artefacts!” he yelped.

Coran shot him a secretive smile. “Well they were when they were on the table, but now they are on the floor so they cannot be classified as so.” Lance sputtered. _What?_ “Besides,” Coran continued, “they belonged to Hallveig the second and she was, how should I put it, a rather unpleasant person. I doubt anyone will mind” He winked.

Lance couldn’t stop the surprised snort from escaping from his lips. He already liked Coran.

“Well then,” Coran mused and tugged on his moustache. “If you don’t need any more assistance I’ll leave you to your research. I have duties to attend to.”

Lance barely had time to say goodbye before the man had already whisked out of the room, leaving him alone with his books. Alright. He pulled the chair from under the table and sat down. Time to read, then.

After about two hours of reading, the books turned out to be a total letdown. One of them catalogued every type of dragon the Vikings had seen, and while Lance did learn some new things (some dragon lived underground, like worms!), there was nothing on the dragon he had met in the forest. Was there really no one out there who had seen one like it before? That was odd.

The second book was very old. So old, in fact, that Lance couldn’t understand some parts at all as the words used in them were completely foreign to him. It was written in the format of small stories, which didn’t help his case at all, since the important parts were buried in loads and loads of useless clutter. There had been a section about a man who had used dragons for gardening, which had gotten Lance excited until the story ended with him being eaten. Not exactly what he was looking for.

Lance yawned and stretched to crack his back. He glanced out of the window and was surprised to see it was well past noon already. His head was getting cluttered from having been sitting still so long, so he decided it would be a good time to call it quits for the day. It wasn’t like he knew where to look for more information with Coran gone anyway. Trying to search the bookshelves by himself would most likely end in some kind of a disaster, or at least make him waste a lot of time. He would just come back and ask later.

That left his whole afternoon free, though…

 

***

 

The dragon wasn’t in the clearing when Lance arrived. Also, Lance was a stupid little Viking boy with no self-control whatsoever. After leaving the library he had decided to go “hunt” and of course he had ended up back here. He had known he would right from the start, too. And now he was staring at the surprisingly empty clearing with an unnerving amount of disappointment welling up in his chest.

He didn’t know why he was so disappointed to realise that he most likely wouldn’t meet the dragon again. He had concluded last time that it had only been playing nice to get him to help it with its wound, so not seeing it now probably saved him from being eaten. Still, it would have been nice to see the dragon had ended up okay…

Why he had expected to see the thing in here was beyond his imagination, though. The dragon had a pair of perfectly fine wings and three working legs so there was no reason for it to just have sat there for a full day. Well, that meant it had been in a good enough condition to move, then. Or maybe it had been eaten by a bigger dragon or something, Lance’s moron brain whispered. It hadn’t been all that big, after all. Lance smacked himself and banished the thoughts away. The dragon was fine.

He wanted to see the thing again, though. He had a certain feeling that the dragon would somehow be able to answer at least some of his millions of questions. He knew that he shouldn't be here, that pretty much everyone back home would be disappointed in him if they knew what he was up to, but he didn't think his curiosity would be satisfied with just books, even if Coran managed to dig up some good ones. Just one more time, Lance reasoned. If only he could meet the dragon once more and figure some things out, then he would be fine. 

Only this time he had no way to track the dragon down. There was no trail leading to it, he had made sure of that when he had stopped the bleeding. Also, the thing could fly. Lance couldn’t fly. It could be all the way on the North Pole for all he knew. (How fast did dragons fly? What was their maximum endurance? Why had no one bothered to find out anything about their “mortal enemy” during the last hundred or so years?)

Logically speaking it would impossible for Lance to find the dragon if it didn’t want to be found. Too bad Lance rarely acted according to common logic. His actions were usually one part stubbornness and one part “I _have_ to try this, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” The rest was the opposite of logic, whatever that might be. So he decided he would try looking for it. He'd also get a better sense of the forest here so it wasn’t like it would all go to waste even if his search ended up fruitless. Maybe he could catch something to bring home. This was supposed to be a hunting trip, after all.

 

***

 

Lance’s day could have been considered to be pretty frustrating thus far. First the books and now the clearing had both turned out to be complete flops, but at least the weather was nice! He liked to stay optimistic, and all things considered, he had been having an alright day. That had only been before he stepped in a hole and busted his ankle, of course.

He had been lazily meandering around, taking in the forest that was new to him. He had been looking up at a beehive hanging from a rocky cliff wondering how it hadn’t been destroyed yet when the ground had suddenly disappeared from under his left foot. It had reappeared soon enough though, and with a bang.

He had heard an unsettling snap from his ankle and a sudden burst of pain had radiated up his leg. Lance had let out some well-chosen words that his father would not have been proud of and practically collapsed on the ground. Fucking of course.

What made the situation considerably worse was the fact that, even after two painful tugs, Lance could not get his foot out of the hole. It was very much stuck. In a tiny hole in the ground. How he even had managed to achieve such a feat, even he couldn’t comprehend. It must have been a part of that special Lance McClain flare he was always boasting about. Not everyone could get their foot stuck in a thirty-centimetre hole. That took some serious skill. Skill that he apparently possessed.

When most of the initial pain had subsided Lance thought it was a little bit funny. Hunk would laugh at his story when he’d tell him later, while feeling terrible at it at the same time. Pidge would just laugh without feeling bad about it at all. Then he tried to jank his leg out again and all the funnies disappeared like a cat in a rainstorm. He wheezed in pain and tried again. No dice. Every time he moved the leg even slightly more pain ran up his leg. He was trapped.

Lance glanced around nervously and started to sweat. This was bad. This was baaaaad.

The hole (and now his foot) was between two large rocks, both of them half buried in the forest floor. Lance tried to claw the dirt around one of them but it was useless. There was no way he’d ever be able to move either rock by himself. And, of course, he hadn’t told anyone where he would be going so no help would be coming. After all, no one ever went to this part of the forest and it was far too far away for him to be heard if he tried to shout for help. When they’d notice he was gone they would look from his usual hunting grounds. Which were nowhere near where he was now.

Panic rose up in his chest. No one would be able to find him. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. What if–

No, he had to calm down. He was a Viking, he would not be beaten by a stupid hole in the ground. He just had to think so he’d figure a way to get free. He assessed his equipment. Bow, arrows, a skin of water, some bread, and blueberry cookies made by Hunk. And a knife. He tried to cut his boot open to let his foot free but he couldn’t reach it. Damn.

Lance had reduced himself to hacking at the ground with an arrowhead when he felt it. A sudden chill up his spine. It started at his lower back and made its way up to his neck. Lance froze. He was being watched. By… something. At that moment Lance realised how utterly defenceless he currently was. He was trapped. He was trapped like a fish in a net, unable to move or hide, helpless and ready to be taken. Lance gulped. Was he going to die here? Alone and sad and trapped in a hole? 

Slowly, Lance twisted his body around. His eyes wandered over the seemingly empty forest for a moment until he found them. Two glistening yellow eyes, the ones that had come to feel almost familiar at this point. Against all odds, he _had_ found the dragon. Or rather, the dragon had found him.

Much like before, both of them seemed to freeze for a moment. The dragon was observing Lance from the hill he had been looking at before. Its body was mostly hidden between a rock and a gangly a spruce tree. How long had it been there? The entire time? Well, wasn't that an unsettling thought.

At the sight of the familiar dragon sudden relief flooded Lance for some reason. It was as if his subconscious had already decided that this dragon wouldn’t be a threat to him. The thought made him feel a bit queasy. A dragon was a dragon, no matter the circumstance. Maybe it had refrained from eating him once as a payment for him helping it. That payment was paid an forgotten, though. This was a new game. The dragon was a dangerous beast. But why didn’t it feel like that at all?

Lance decided to go with what he did best. Talk himself out of a bad situation. He had gotten pretty good at it over the years, surely there was no reason it wouldn’t work on a dragon the same way it did with humans. No reason at all. Nope.

Lance did his best to morph his face into a smile. “Hiya, there.” No answer. Lance continued, amping some extra chipper into his voice. He waved his arms around to add some effect. “It’s me again, your good friend— OW!” He had unwittingly put pressure on his left foot. A grimace broke through his happy mask. The dragon’s eyes shifted from his face to his foot. It tilted its head curiously. “O- oh, yeah. I’m in a bit of a pinch here, so I would be like really super extra grateful if you would not eat me? Please? I mean I’m really—” His breath hitched as the dragon pushed its body out from its hiding place behind the shrubbery.

He waited silently as the beast quietly snuck closer. It stopped about five meters from him and gave his foot a curious once-over. Then it raised its head and gave Lance an impossibly flat stare. Lance gaped at the dragon’s clearly judgemental face and was filled with indignation. He puffed up and sputtered. It was obvious the thing was rudely judging his life decisions, which Lance did not approve of in the slightest. He felt like he needed to explain himself before the dragon would… get the wrong idea? Or something.

“Look, this is _not_ normal for me, okay? I can usually walk in the forest without getting stuck.” The dragon gave him a dubious look, and Lance seethed. The smug bastard was looking down on him! Lance bristled and jabbed a finger toward the dragon. “I was _distracted,_ okay? And actually, I was looking for you, so this is at least partially your fault!” Well, he hadn’t exactly meant to tell the thing that but apparently his mouth had had other ideas. The dragon snorted at him. Lance ground his teeth together and scoffed at it. “I don’t know much about dragons but I don’t think they’re usually this rudeeee—  ow, ow, OW!”

The dragon jumped back as Lance let out another string of expletives. The hole had his ankle twisted in an unnatural position and the pain was _not_ getting better. Lance glanced at the dragon and couldn’t help snorting despite the pain. The thing was staring at him with eyes as wide as dinner plates and looked like a thoroughly ruffled housecat. Lance was sure that had it had fur, it would have been sticking up in every possible direction.

Lance snickered at it. “Scared of some bad words, are you?” He stuck out his tongue for good measure. Goading a dragon while trapped was possibly not the smartest decision out there but Lance couldn’t quite help himself. Besides, the dragon had never made any moves towards hurting him so he would probably be fine. ...Probably. What had happened in the village didn’t count, Lance decided. That had been a very stressful situation all around.

The dragon grumbled at his words but it visibly relaxed. It stepped closer to him, and Lance noticed it was still careful of its right leg. The wound was bothering it still, then. Lance felt a pang of guilt surge through him but he couldn’t dwell on it for long. The dragon was still sneaking closer, keeping an untrusting eye on Lance. Finally it stopped, right in front of him. Lance could easily have touched it if he had lifted his hand. He gulped. What was it doing? 

The dragon cast him another suspicious glance and ducked its head down. Lance was confused for a moment until he realised it was inspecting his foot. He could feel the dragon’s breath through his pant leg in hot puffs. This was weird. This was so, so exceptionally weird. The fact that the dragon apparently trusted him enough to come this close, though it was nothing remarkable, made Lance oddly happy. Like he had earned something special, maybe.

The dragon suddenly nudged his leg with its nose and Lance yelped. Damn, that had stung. The dragon quickly glanced up at him. (Lance didn’t see any remorse in its eyes, the bastard.) Then it got to work. Lance stared, mouth agape, as it brandished its claws and started digging. At first Lance was slightly worried, as those claws could have cut through his skin like paper and they were very, very close to his foot. The dragon didn’t as much as brush his leg, though. It worked carefully digging around one of the rocks Lance’s foot was wedged between, a job that would have taken him hours with a shovel was finished in about ten minutes.

When the dragon seemingly decided the stone was loose enough it gave it a hard tug. Then it stepped back and looked at Lance expectantly. Lance stared in amazement for a moment and let a wide smile grace his lips. Whether or not this had been to pay him back for helping it before, he was now sure that the dragon was at least a little bit nice. Not only to make Lance help it in a pinch but also enough to help him back. (It also meant it had some sort of a moral compass, but Lance decided to deal with whatever that meant later.)

At the dragons urging chirp Lance experimentally moved his foot and was amazed to see that it was, indeed, free. He yanked himself away from the hole, with a bit too much gusto perhaps, as the momentum caused him to fall backwards and onto his butt. Lance blinked a few times in confusion and then burst into laughter. It was a mix of amazement and hysteria created by this bizarre situation. He figured he was allowed some hysteria as he had actually thought he was going to die for a moment back there.

The dragon made a satisfied sound from its throat as it saw Lance free from the evil clutches of the earth but its expression soon turned to mild concern as it stared at Lance who was cackling uncontrollably on the ground. It let out a low grumble and tilted its head which finally snapped Lance out of his hysteria. He wiped his eyes and pushed himself into a sitting position. Oh dear.

The dragon was still giving him an expectant look for some reason. Lance was confused. What did it want now? Did it expect something as repayment or… “Oh! Thank you! For saving me, I mean. Really, thanks.” Lance’s parents didn’t raise him to be ungrateful, he couldn’t believe he had almost forgotten to say thank you. His grandmother would have had smacked him. The dragon chirped and Lance couldn’t help grinning widely back.

The dragon chirped again while looking at him oddly, and Lance snorted. “You’re weird,” he told it solemnly. He received a half-hearted grumble in response but he could tell the dragon wasn’t seriously mad at him. It seemed oddly proud of helping him. Maybe it didn’t have a chance to be helpful all that often. Did dragons help each other in a pinch or was it every dragon for themselves?

Lance did his best to shake the dust and other garbage that had gotten onto his clothes off and tried to straighten his messy hair. His success was debatable but it wasn’t like there was anyone here to see him being a dishevelled mess anyway. Except for the dragon, of course, but it didn’t really count. He would bet the dragon was a slob, anyway. “Now that we have dealt with mine, how’s _your_ leg?” he asked.

The dragon turned to show him the wound. It looked a lot better, actually. The wound had closed completely by now but it was still visibly there. Lance hummed thoughtfully. “Well, it’s just a leg so you are still able to fly, right?”

The dragon shrugged. Now, it was weird to see a shrug on a dragon and Lance couldn’t even begin guessing where it had acquired the expression. On that though, where had it learned to understand a human language anyway? Did all dragons know it somehow?

Lance frowned. “What does that mean? Can you not fly?” Another shrug. “What? You can’t? Why not?” This time he received a series of complicated gestures finished off with an exasperated huff. Lance sighed. “Yeah, didn’t get any of that but whatever. I was getting creepily good at dragonese anyway, don’t you think?”

The dragon snorted and Lance grinned back at it. “No, really. Wait, let me tell you about this time someone from a  faraway village travelled to ours. It was a language disaster…”

Lance sat there for a while, recounting his tale about Sigrid from Åland and several others after that. At first he only intended to wait for the pain throbbing in his ankle to dull before getting up, but then, as the dragon seemed interested in hearing more, he started talking for the fun of it. Lance loved telling stories and jokes, but most of his friends and family had gotten tired of hearing his favorite ones over and over again. He revelled in having a new pair of ears to grace with his great comedy. The dragon seemed to be especially interested in stories about his friends and family for some reason. Lance could approve that, his friends were great.

He was a bit surprised that the dragon decided to stay and listen rather than leaving to do its own stuff, though. Then again, what did dragons even do with their spare time? He supposed it probably didn’t have anything better to do if it really couldn’t fly and all. Well, whatever, he enjoyed the audience, no matter how grumpy and standoffish it seemed to be at times.

Lance only stopped when he noticed that the sky was well on its way to turning yellow. He realised he’d been there for hours. Everyone at home would start getting worried soon. “Well,” he sighed stretching his back which was getting sore for sitting on the ground for so long. “I’d better start heading back. I hope you’re not going to use all this information against us.” He accusatorily narrowed his eyes at the dragon who scoffed. It had curled into a ball on the ground a while ago, head resting snugly on its front paws. ...Paws? Whatever. Now it uncurled itself and stretched too, letting out a huge yawn and blinking sleepily. Lance giggled.

His laughter ended instantly as he tried to stand up, though. The throbbing in his ankle had dulled down as he had been sitting but putting weight on it instantly made the pain flare back up again. A cruciating sting shot up Lance’s leg and he crumbled down with a wail.

The dragon jerked up and chirped in alarm. It pushed into Lance’s vision and hovered over him uncertainly while he laid on his back gasping for breath.

“I’m okay,” Lance panted. “I’m okay. I think.” He tried shifting his ankle and winced. “Well,” he grimaced. “Shit.” The dragon hummed in agreement.

Lance used his left hand to pull himself into a sitting position. Despite only actually being hurt in one ankle he felt like every part of his body had been repeatedly whacked with one of Hunk's hammers. Panic welled up in his chest. “Oh no. Shit. It’s… It’s over a twenty-minute walk home from here. There is no way…” Would he have to crawl? It would take a long time but he’d eventually get home at least. But it was seriously getting dark soon…

The dragon withdrew a bit so that it was standing about two metres from him. It seemed thoughtful for a moment. Lance watched as it seemed to come to a decision, which was followed up by a sigh that almost seemed defeated. It lowered its left shoulder and looked at Lance expectantly, as if it wanted… As if it was offering…

Lance’s jaw almost fell to the ground. “You want me to..?” A flat blink. Yes.  “Holy… Are you serious?” The dragon rolled its eyes at him. If Lance was correct, and he was pretty sure he was, the dragon was offering to carry him. On its back. Ohhh boy. This was _not_ happening. Hunk would be so— 

No. Hunk would never know. Dammit.

Lance stood up, carefully this time, and took a few wobbly hops until he was standing right next to the dragon. He raised a hand toward it and, when it wasn’t chopped off, tentatively laid it on the dragon’s shoulder. He had touched it before, but the experience had been muddled by the blood-induced panic and disbelief. Now he had all the time in the world to take it in. Well, probably not all the time. It hadn't seemed like the dragon had the most patience out there thus far.

The beast’s scales were a lot warmer and softer than he had remembered. It visibly stiffened at his touch but seemed to force itself to relax again. Lance could appreciate the effort. It seemed this was a stressful situation for both of them, which made him feel abysmally better.

Lance removed his hand. For now, his brain reminded him. There would have to be a lot more touching if he really was going to… Holy shit, was he going to ride a dragon? Lance swallowed. The dragon was attentively watching him, as if expecting him to do something weird. Honestly, Lance kind of expected himself to do something weird too. If only he knew what was considered weird by dragon standards... He offered it a wobbly smile. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” He told the dragon. “It’s not like you owe me anything for helping you yesterday when I’m the one who shot you in the first place.”

The dragon’s eyes widened a bit and then narrowed into a sharp glare. Lance felt his insides freeze. Oh shit. “You… you did know it was me who did it, right? Oh boy, I sure hope you didn’t, like, just realise now and now you want revenge or something. Ohhh boy, good going, Lance.”

The dragon’s head shot up a few centimetres, its ear-things perking forward. It tilted its head in contemplation. Lance had no idea what was going through its head but it didn’t seem any more murdery than before so he figured he was fine. Hopefully. “Anyway,” he rambled on, “did I ever apologise for shooting you? In case I didn’t, I’m sorry, I really am.” He frowned. “Well, I mean you kinda shot a fireball at my head and were wrecking my village so—”

He was cut off by a loud snarl and a pair of narrow, golden eyes. Lance’s heart jumped into his throat. Yep, he was going to die, after all, wasn’t he? He was too young to die but, as his mother had predicted years ago, his stupid, big mouth was going to end up being his doom. He broke into a nervous laugh. Fix it, Lance, fix it quick! “Haha, yeah, my fault totally. What was I even thinking? Of course it's in your rights to—” He was interrupted again, this time by a series of chirps he had figured to be dragon’s version of laughter. It was laughing at him..? What the frick? 

Oh.

Lance let out a huge breath. His heart was beating like crazy. This lizard! “You… you! I thought you were going to _eat_ me!” The dragon continued laughing, poorly concealed mirth dancing in its eyes. Lance grumbled and slapped its shoulder.

It was a gentle slap, the same he would use with his friends and siblings when they were purposely annoying. That didn’t help much in this case. They both froze, staring at each other eyes wide. Lance’s hand was hovering in the air, his mouth hanging open. He had just done that. He had just smacked a dragon. Oh dear.

The shocked silence lasted for a few moments. Then both of them simultaneously broke into startled laughter. Lance’s  was only slightly less hysteric than before. This day had had a tad too many near-death experiences for his taste.

After a moment he managed to rein in his laughter but one look at the dragon’s funnily scrunched nose made him burst into a new set of giggles. 

When the laughter had finally subsided they were both gasping for air. The dragon shook its head as if to right itself and offered its shoulder to Lance again. Lance laid a hand on it, more confidently this time. “You really want me to just… climb on?” he asked, just to be sure. The dragon rolled its eyes at him, obviously fed up with his questioning. Well, sue him, he didn’t want to be eaten for misunderstanding and _accidentally climbing a dragon_.

What the hell had happened to his life?

Before he could have second thoughts Lance decided to just go for it. He set his other hand on the dragon’s back as well and tried to pull himself on. The dragon’s back only reached to about his stomach but it still took two tries for him to get on, which was embarrassing to say the least. He blamed the leg.

The motion of swinging his leg over the dragon’s back wasn’t all that strange to him. There were a few horses in the village that he had ridden a few times before. The thing that was strange, however, was that this was in fact not a horse but a dragon. And he was currently sitting on the said dragon, and, surprisingly enough, he was still in one piece. Holy crap, this was actually pretty amazing. Definitely weird but also definitely amazing.

The dragon made an annoyed clicking noise in its throat and Lance realised he had been blabbering his thought process out loud. He mumbled an apology and the dragon started walking. Its scales were less slippery than Lance had expected but it still took some time for him to get used to its gait and get rid of the fear of sliding off. Well, it wasn’t like it would be dangerous to fall since this dragon was kind of tiny by dragon standards. Lance sagely decided not to mention this thought out loud.

They had been walking for about ten minutes when the dragon stopped. Both of them had been quiet during the journey, lost in thought. At least Lance had been. He couldn’t really speak for the other. Who knew what was going on in its head.

Even though the dragon’s leg was wounded its walking speed had still been much faster than Lance’s average. It did have double the number of legs compared to him after all. There was still some way to the village from where they had stopped but Lance supposed the dragon didn’t want to risk going any closer than this. He didn’t blame it, dragons were generally not welcomed all that well, even they happened to be carrying wounded Vikings on their backs. (Not that that had ever happened but Lance had enough imagination to guess.) He would have to make do with his leg for the rest of the way. Maybe he could hop on one foot. That would certainly gain him some respect in the community.

Lance carefully swung a leg over the dragon’s back and slid off. The dragon shook its shoulders a little as if carrying him had made its back sore. Rude. It sniffled and turned its head to look at him.

After a moment of hesitation, Lance raised his hand and pat the dragon’s nose as thanks. It scrunched its nose and crossed its eyes in a hilariously confused look, and Lance couldn’t help giggling. “Thanks for the ride, dude.” The dragon grumbled and rolled its eyes. “No, really. You really saved me back there. Thank you.” The dragon’s expression turned into something Lance couldn’t decipher and it moved its eyes to avoid looking at him in the eyes. Was it embarrassed? Could dragons get embarrassed?

Lance sighed. “I should get going now. It’s late. See you around!”

It took a bewildered look from the dragon to make Lance realise what he had said. He broke into a lopsided grin. “Well, maybe. I wouldn’t mind seeing you again. You seem pretty cool.”

Never mind seeing it only once more, then.

Lance was a bit surprised to realise his words were completely honest. He would like to meet the dragon again. Not only to find out more about dragons in general but to just… hang out. Or something. It had been nice to be able to talk to someone new who was removed from the village. Someone who didn’t have any expectations for him. Even if they couldn’t talk back. Well, to be honest, the dragon’s expressions were pretty versatile. Lance had been able to grasp the meaning behind them in most cases.

That was… weird, wasn’t it? Why did he, a Viking, have such an easy time reading what a dragon was feeling?

Still, just admitting his affection out loud had been a tad too honest for his preferences. “I mean, of course you’d be ecstatic to meet me again, wouldn’t you?” He jokingly winked at the dragon who looked like it had just swallowed a lemon. Lance giggled.

The dragon huffed and turned around. It gave him one last look before disappearing back into the forest. “Bye!” Lance shouted after it.

He stayed there for a few minutes. It only took seconds for the plants disrupted by the dragon’s exit to settle down. It was impossible to tell there had been a dragon here at all anymore. It kind of felt impossible too. Lance sighed and turned around. Then he started hopping.

What a day. He had been looking for answers but had instead managed to double the number of questions he had. And maybe make a new friend, too. Sort of.

Maybe.

 

***

 

“ _WHERE_ have you _been?_ ”

When Lance opened the front door to his house was almost swept right back out by the power of his father’s yell. Crap. Lance took his sweet time stepping in and closing the door behind him. Then he carefully turned to take in the scene in the house.

His father was standing in the middle of the room. The twins were half asleep on the sofa behind him, and Marco was sitting at their dining table a bit further away. And everybody was staring at him in several shades of distress. Marco looked somewhere between enthusiastic to see Lance get scolded and worried for his well-being. Typical.

Lance realised several things at once. First of all, the sun had set like an hour ago, and because it was the middle of the summer that meant it was well past midnight already. Second of all, he was covered in dust and shrubbery from falling on the ground several times during his “hunting trip”. Third of all, he was visibly limping. If one of these things had happened on its own he might have been fine but all of them put together… Yeah, he was dead.

Lance’s father was a generally calm and soft-spoken man. He was just a bit taller than Lance himself and had a dark brown hair and a short beard. Although Lance looked more like his mom, he had gotten his skin tone and ears from his dad. His dad, Raúl, was the village’s best (and only, but he was still good!) candlemaker. Since Lance’s mom was a fisher and went on long fishing trips pretty often, his dad was the one who had looked after him as a kid more.

Everybody, including Lance, liked Raúl. He was kind and genuinely nice to be around. There was a specific mood his dad had, however, that most people didn’t know about, and that mood was reserved for Lance only. The mood ranged all the way from being able to ignore Lance until he gave up on something for attention to figuratively slamming their heads together until whatever he was saying finally sunk into his obstinate son’s head. Lance got a distinct feeling that what he was feeling right then resembled the latter significantly more.

When Lance didn’t answer, his father took several steps toward him and crossed his arms. He opened his mouth, ready to give his son a lecture when he seemed to finally take in Lance’s poor appearance. His dad deflated like a puffer fish. His father was also softer than a sheep whenever it came to his children. “Lance? What happened, are you alright?”

Lance let out a pent-up sigh and limped to the sofa. He sank down on it, making Veronica and Luis bounce a bit. Veronica sneezed and made both of them wake up. Suddenly Lance was feeling like one of Hunk’s enormous hammers had been set on his chest, just squeezing his mood down. “Yeah, I’m fine. Well, mostly. Why is everybody still up?” It sounded tired, and kind of pathetic. It felt like all of the day's excitement and panic were finally taking their toll on him.

“Umm. Maybe because you were literally _missing_ ,” Marco piped up from the dining table.

Somehow his brother's smartass voice made Lance feel a bit better. Lance twisted his upper body to look at Marco. “I was hunting. And besides, I’ve been missing many times before and nothing bad has ever happened.

Behind him, his father snorted. Apparently he was full of sass again now that he knew his son wasn’t about to literally die. Typical. Marco rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but _Hunk_ wasn’t missing. And I know, because guess what? I had to run to _his_ house to try to find _you_ but he wasn’t there either. But then his grandma said he was at Pidge’s weird workshop thing. And you _know_ I don’t like to go there because they hissed at me that one time. Also, it’s halfway across town. But I went there. And then Hunk was there but he had no idea where you were either so _then—_ ”

Their dad cut Marco off with a cough. “Yes, thank you, Marco, we get it. How about you take Luis and Veronica to bed, now that our,” pointed glance at Lance, “runaway is back.”

Marco rose from his chair, letting it scrape the wooden floor with a terrible _shhhhhr_ k. He flung his arms up theatrically. “And now I have to do this too. When will it end, Lance, when will it end? When will my poor soul be granted a good night’s sleep?” Marco easily scooped the twins from the sofa and climbed up the stairs leading to their bedrooms, his monologuing getting quieter and quieter as he got further away.

Lance and his dad waited in silence until Marco’s bedroom door shut with a bang. His dad sighed and walked to the kitchenette they had in the house. He put a kettle of water warming on the lit stove and sat down at the chair Marco had vacated. Then he looked at Lance, eyes strong and unwavering. “Lance. What happened?”

Lance gulped. He would just tell the truth minus the dragon parts. Why did he feel so weird about it? It wouldn’t even be lying, it would just be… selective storytelling. He wrung his hands in his lap. “Well,” he started, “like I said I went for a hunting tip and. Um. I kind of... got my foot stuck in a hole, maybe? Don’t tell Marco!” He hastily added the last part. There would be no end to the teasing if Marco got a hold of this story. He was like Pidge but with extensively more drama.

Lance was so far in his head imagining the horrors of a Marco-Pidge team up that he almost missed his father facepalming at the table. Almost.

“HEY!”

His father raked his fingers through his hair and seemed very, very tired. “You got stuck in a hole. And it took this long to get out of said hole?”

Lance sniffled. “Well, yeah. I had to dig myself out and then I had to limp home so…”

The teakettle whistled and his dad stood up to tend to it. Lance couldn’t see his expression when he said: “Is your leg okay? How bad is it hurt?”

Lance winced. It was bad. No need to worry his dad even more than he already had, though. “It’s been better. I’ll go to the infirmary to check it tomorrow. I bet it’s just strained a little."

His dad turned around and walked to the sofa, two steaming mugs in his hands. He offered one to Lance who went to take a sip and immediately burned his tongue. Lance set the cup down on a table as his father settled down on the sofa next to him. He jumped a little as his dad grabbed his leg and hoisted it up to his lap. He pulled off Lance’s boot and scrutinized his ankle.

It was good Lance had set the cup down because right then his dad decided it was a good idea to prod his swollen (hey, when had that happened?) ankle with a bony finger. Lance yelped and then immediately slammed a hand over his mouth. The twins were (probably) asleep upstairs, and every single person living in the house had experience with waking them up before morning. It wasn’t beautiful.

It seemed that he had reflexively kicked with his leg when his ankle had been touched. It seemed this way because his dad was currently hunched over and wheezing, arms wrapped around his stomach. Well, it was his own damn fault for poking him. Don’t touch an ankle if you don’t want to be kicked in the stomach would actually be an excellent proverb, wouldn’t it? Lance was kind of tired at this point.

Without saying anything Lance’s dad grabbed his own teacup and took a long sip. Lance got a sudden suspicion that there was something else in that cup beside just tea. He supposed his dad had deserved it.

“Lance,” his dad started then. He had always had a very specific way of saying Lance’s name. Like he was exasperated yet still glad he existed at the same time. (That might sum up most people’s Lance-experience, to be honest. Lance didn’t like that thought so he made it disappear from his brain. He was so tired that that was easy at this point.)

“Lance. It’s only been two days since you hurt your hands, and now this? Did you really think it was a good idea to go hunting while you’re still recovering?”

Everyone seemed to be going on and on about Lance’s hands. Honestly, they didn’t even hurt anymore so Lance had completely forgotten they were supposed to be hurt in the first place. “I don’t see what my hands have to do with me getting stuck in a hole but whatever,” he muttered under his breath.

His dad seemed like he didn’t approve of the sass. Lance took a deep breath. “I was bored, alright? It’s not like I have anything better to do.” The last part came out harsher than he’d meant it to. Lance took a deep gulp of tea to soften the effect. Did it work? Probably not.

His dad set down his tea(and potentially other liquids)cup. “Lance.” There it was again, more concerned this time. Nope, Lance decided. Nope nope nopety nope. He was too tired for this conversation right now. Also, his mind hadn’t had time to go through the fact that he had ridden a _dragon_ less than an hour before. There was no way he could handle a serious “how are you feeling about life, son?” -talk without blowing up. Nope.

“Look,” Lance cut off whatever his dad had been about to say. “I’m super tired and my ankle is aching. Can we just go to sleep? You have to work tomorrow, no?”

His dad sighed. Then took a deep breath and sighed again. “Fine, I’ll let you go to sleep. C’mere.” He spread his arms wide and Lance dove into his chest. He breathed in his dad’s familiar scent for a while, then wrenched himself up from the sofa trying to put as little pressure on his ankle as humanly possible. It hurt significantly less than the time he’d actually sprained his other ankle last year doing questionable things so he supposed it wasn’t hurt all that bad.

His dad watched his wobbling with his eyebrows pressed tightly together in worry. He set a comforting hand on Lance’s shoulder. “You sure we don’t need to get that checked out right now?”

Lance nodded. It wasn’t like there would be anyone awake at the infirmary in the first place. “It’s alright, dad. Good night.”

Lance’s dad gave him another quick hug before he hobbled to the stairs. “‘Night.”

Lance stopped at the root of the stairs and peered up at the many, many steps there were between him and his room. “Dad?” His dad hummed questioningly from the sofa. “...Can you carry me upstairs?”

 

***

 

The next morning Lance headed over to the infirmary and was given a weird brace for his ankle and a walking stick. Using them to hobble around was tricky at first but he got the hang of it soon enough. This wasn’t the first time he had messed up one of his legs, after all.

Walking with them was a bit annoying, but the far bigger problem they brought Lance was the looks everyone was giving him. And he meant _everybody._ Half the village had stopped him on the streets and asked what had happened, which caused Lance to blabber something about a hunting accident. He had managed to avoid giving honest answers thus far but he knew that someone would find out that he had gotten stuck in a hole at some point. The village wasn’t all that big and rumours always spread faster than wildfire. (Though they spread considerably slower when Lance wasn’t the one to inflate them but whatever.) The point was, he would lose serious coolness points when the information became public.

The other half just kept giving him exasperated glances when he limped past. Those were the people who knew him better. One of the ladies at the tailor’s workshop shook her head and just muttered: “What kind of idiocy did you do this time?” Lance stuck his tongue out at her.

The lady at the infirmary had told him to take it easy for at least two weeks. She knew Lance pretty well by now though, and Lance had figured that she always told him it was a lot worse than it actually was and at least doubled the time she told him to rest in the hopes of trying to make him take it easy for the appropriate amount of time. Lance had a habit of cutting his healing times short, see? His body just wasn’t made for sitting still.

So a week, then. He could handle that. Maybe.

He was awkwardly hobbling from the infirmary, avoiding people’s curious looks the best he could (why did he always make sure everybody knew who he was, this was getting ridiculous), when he ran into the library man, Coran. Literally. He had been rounding a corner and smacked right into the man’s chest, his walking stick happily clattering away. Had Coran not reflexively grabbed him by the arm, Lance would have gone clattering away too. He wasn't all that steady at the moment.

“Oh my!” Coran exclaimed after both of them had gathered their bearings. The man seemed to be in a chipper mood, carrying a stack of cleaning supplies with him. The bright sunlight of the clear summer day ricocheted from his moustache to every direction, and made Lance have to squint while looking at him.

Coran gave Lance a once over, sharp eyes skittering over his brace and the stick now lying on the cobblestone pavement. “Oh my,” he repeated and reached down to pluck the stick from the ground. “Here you go, my boy. May I ask what happened to you? This was not caused by my books, was it?” The man looked genuinely worried, as if he truly believed the books had somehow been able to break someone’s ankle.

Lance shook his head and took the offered walking stick. “Nope, I had an accident on a hunting trip. The books were fine. Well...” Lance frowned. He had been planning on asking Coran for more books, hadn’t he? With his foot like it was it wasn’t like he had anything better to do for the day anyway. He might as well ask now. “They were cool but not really… what I was looking for. Do you have time to show me some new ones?”

Coran flashed Lance a knowing smile. “I thought you might say that. Hmm, I believe I do have some more books you could look at. But I have to finish my chores first. Help me with them, no?” Coran winked.

Chores? Like what chores? Lance eyes at the bundle of cleaning supplies in Coran’s hands. Were those for the library? Well, he supposed he should help Coran, as the librarian was helping him too. “Alright,” he answered. “What do we have on the list?”

 

***

 

Lance hadn’t known about the crypts before that day, so when Coran had opened a locked door in the town hall and led him down a dark staircase he had been filled with excitement. The excitement had dried up in a blink of an eye when Coran had opened a door into something that was very much a storage room for what seemed like years’ worth unwashed pieces of textiles and told him they had to clean all of them that day. “Time for some spring cleaning,” the man had said even though it was almost autumn already.

With his brace, cane, and attitude Lance was more of a hindrance than a help but Coran didn’t seem to mind. The man kept happily chattering the whole time, and by the time they finished with the laundry about a bajillion hours later, Lance was pretty sure he had finally found his match in the field of talking.He also knew far too much about a woman called Unna who had tried to steal twenty-seven chickens at once about forty years ago.

All in all, Coran was alright company, especially when dinner time came and he told Lance he had special access to one baker’s kitchen since “The bugger still owes me for saving his grandfather’s cat from being eaten by a sheep. Let me tell you about that sheep, though, what a peculiar creature it was indeed–” Apparently that special access also held true for Lance today, as Coran rewarded him with a huge cinnamon roll when they sat down for dinner. (It didn’t beat Hunk’s though. That man would have become an excellent baker if he hadn’t decided to go for mechanics.)

“So wassat all we haddo do?” Lance asked as he stuffed his mouth full of pastry.

Coran stroked his moustache in thought. “Ah! I still have to fetch Allura some old records as well as start the calculations about the amount of salt we have to buy for next year.” Lance banged his head on the table and groaned. How had he never known that Coran did this much stuff? He had thought the man was just a crazy librarian! Coran clapped his hands together. “But I do think that there is one more task even more important than those two.” He winked at Lance secretively.

Lance blinked tiredly. Great. There was more. “What’s that?” He asked as it was obvious that Coran had stopped to wait for him to do just that.

Coran leaned closer and glanced around as if to be sure there were no prying ears around. “That is,” he whispered (except it wasn’t a whisper as it seemed Coran was physically incapable of whispering), “introducing some knowledge to the brains of our village’s youth via our sacred texts.” Coran bounced up from his seat and clapped his hands together. “Are you finished, my boy?” he practically screamed into Lance’s ear, and Lance almost choked on his cinnamon bun and died.

 

***

 

When Lance and Coran arrived at the town hall someone was standing there waiting. He wasn’t waiting for the two of them, though.

“Coran,” Takashi Shirogane, the village’s greatest dragon fighter and Lance’s longtime hero, said. “Have you seen the chieftain? I can’t find her.” Shiro had his arms placed on his hips and a battle axe hung from his belt. He was _so_ cool. Lance almost squeaked.

Coran stroked his moustache thoughtfully. “An excellent question, my boy, but I cannot say I have. I have been working the whole day with Lance here, see?”

Coran motioned toward Lance and Shiro’s eyes moved to him. Lance’s knees went a bit weak. Shiro had always been someone to look up to for Lance. Even when he had been a little kid Shiro had been there for him to admire. He was strong and skilled, but also nice and an important asset to chief Allura in her job. Everybody loved Shiro, including Lance even though he had never had the chance to actually speak to the man in a non-battle scenario. (That would be the time when Lance accidentally launched himself with a catapult during a dragon attack but he hoped Shiro didn’t remember that he was the kid from back then. He would probably die from embarrassment if he did.)

Lance decided to make a good first (second) impression on the man. He took a deep breath and offered a hand smiling dashingly. “Hi. I’m Lance. I don’t think we’ve ever properly met.”

The weight of Shiro’s prosthetic was heavy when they shook hands but the man looked nothing but pleasantly excited to meet him. Shiro smiled. “Ah. I’m Takashi Shirogane, but everybody just calls me Shiro. I work with the chieftain.” Did he really think Lance didn’t know that already? What a legend. Shiro glanced between Lance and Coran. “So what do you do? Do you work with Coran or..?” The question was kind but it almost made Lance’s well-crafted smile disappear. He did _not_ want to tell his idol that he had been doing laundry all day long.

Lance opened his mouth but Coran had luckily seemed to be able to sense his distress and swooped in. “Lance here is currently recovering from an injury, you see his brace right there, no? He graciously offered to help me with my work today. He’s a food fellow, this guy.” Coran winked at Lance but didn’t even try to hide it in any way. Shiro just laughed.

“Well, I’m glad. Catch you later Coran, Lance. I’ve got to find the chieftain.” Shiro gave them a polite nod and rushed off. Lance sighed in wonder. Shiro had been even more amazing up close.

Lance turned to Coran who was side-eyeing him with an amused look on his face. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. He’s so _cool!_ ”

Coran laughed. “To a youngin like you, I do bet he is. A good man, that Shirogane. He’s a big help for Allura, though he does carry some demons with him. Reminds me of… Hm.” Coran trailed off, leaving Lance in the dark. That had been pretty cryptic. Lance glanced back at where Shiro had disappeared to. He was pretty sure he knew what demons Coran was referring to, though. Shiro carried them on his face and on his arm.

Coran seemed to break out of his memories. He placed a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Let’s go, my boy. There is a lot for you to learn!”

 

***

 

“So,” Coran began after he had sat Lance down in the library. “Tell me more about what exactly you are looking for. Those books I gave you yesterday,–” Had it really been only yesterday? It felt like it had been ages since then. “–they were rather generic, weren’t they? Depending on what you are after there might be some shortage on trustworthy texts but there is always something worthy of taking note. What are we going for?”

Lance hesitated. He didn’t want to tell Coran too much about the dragon but he wouldn’t get anywhere if he hid too much either. “Well,” he began, “there was this dragon I saw a few days ago and I couldn’t find any records of it so…”

Coran hummed in thought. “So you want to know what kind it was? Hmm, it is true that there are many species that we don’t have any records of anymore. A shame, truly, but mayhaps it is better like this... “ Wait, what? Anymore? Lance opened his mouth to inquire but Coran cut him off with a wave of his arm. “Let us not go there this time, my boy. Now, can you describe me this dragon? Even if there are no physical records of it there might be something here.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. “My head is quite a library in and of itself, you know, even if I do say so myself.”

Describe the dragon, huh? Lance thought for a moment. “It was mostly black. There were some red markings on it, I think. Two wings, four legs… Wait!” He grabbed his journal from where he kept it in his bag. He opened it to the page where his scrubby drawing was. He went to show it to Coran but then yanked it back on the last second when he remembered his garbage list on the next page.

Lance awkwardly covered the list with his left hand and showed the drawing to Coran. The man hummed curiously and leaned closer to take a better look. “It was something like this,” Lance explained. “Though this drawing kind of failed.” He took in the smudgy lines and weird tail and cringed. He needed to make a better one. ASAP.

Coran examined the drawing for a few moments. “You have quite a skill here, my boy. Are you an artist?” Lance blinked at the man a few times. What? That was not what he had expected here. Lance found himself blushing at the compliment, which was stupid. Coran hadn’t technically even said the drawing was good.

Lance shook his head. “Nah, I just draw sometimes when my hands don’t want to sit still. So, do you recognise it?” he directed the conversation back to their actual topic. Talking about his drawing skills had felt a bit uncomfortable, maybe because Lance didn’t show his art to other people all that often.

To Lance’s disappointment, Coran shook his head no. “Sorry, my boy, but I’m afraid I don’t. Though this drawing is quite… hm…”

“Vague?”

“Yes, that. If you remember more details maybe add them in. I might be able to recognise it then.”

 

***

 

Lance was aware that when Coran had told him to add more details to his picture he probably hadn’t meant this. “This” being going on an impromptu forest trip to look for a dragon while he still had to use a brace and a cane to walk. But it was probably fine. The lady at the infirmary had told Lance to rest but it wasn’t like he was running around in the forest or anything. He figured it hardly made any difference whether he walked on the village’s roads or the forest floor. The village’s evenly paved roads... or the unkempt forest floor full of branches and roots just waiting for him to trip over them. Like he said, hardly any difference.

This time Lance was armed with some food and his sketchbook as well as his knife and bow. Nothing to get him out of a hole this time either but now he at least knew to look where he was going. He knew it was very unlikely that he would meet the dragon again but if it had happened twice already, why not three times? He could have just drawn it from memory now but he had always preferred having a living model in front of him.

He was heading toward the clearing where he had met the dragon the first time (or technically second, but whatever). He couldn’t really think of any reason why the dragon would be there now, especially since it hadn’t been there last time either, though. The fact that the clearing was his best bet spoke miles about how bad his odds were but Lance was nothing but determined.

With his foot in the condition it currently was it took Lance over half an hour to get to the clearing. When he finally arrived he was sweaty and covered in sticks and leaves for having tripped two times. About twenty minutes into his trip his ankle had started to ache, too. Needless to say, Lance wasn’t in the best mood.

He hobbled to the pond and knelt down by it, splashing water on his dirty face. That made him feel somewhat better. Lance sighed. He would rest here for a few minutes and then go on searching… somewhere. Ugh.

Lance took a sip of water from the flagon he was carrying at his hip and stared absent-mindedly across the clearing. Did the dragon live around here? Did dragons even have specific places they lived in? Lance frowned. With how much of the Vikings’ lives revolved around dragons, that was definitely something he should have known. Why didn’t he? Did anybody? Coran probably did, he should ask the man next time.

The dragon had headed here after he had shot it. Assuming its goal then had been to escape it should have wanted to get as far from the village as it could. But it hadn’t done that. Its path had gone straight to the north first and then looped around so it had been heading west. Maybe this place had been its destination all along. But then again, why had it taken the long way if it had known where it was going all along.

Lance grabbed his sketchbook and started a new drawing. He might as well try to hash out the things he remembered while his ankle rested. He started with the general shape, sketching the dragon’s torso that was stably balanced on top of four rather short legs. This thing was nothing like a Nadder, which resembled birds more than anything else. It kind of reminded Lance of a cat. Very large, oddly shapen and scaly, but a cat nonetheless. Though that might have been solely because it had kept jumping and chirping like one.

Then there was the tail… which Lance actually hadn’t gotten that good loof of at all. He had been sitting next to the dragon for hours last time and he hadn’t once thought to actually look at the thing. Typical. Typical, but also stupid. After adding the scribbly tail Lance went to sketch out the head… and completely failed. He had been so focused on those dumb glowy eyes that he had completely ignored what rest of the head looked like. Did it have horns, ears, spikes? He had no idea.

Until suddenly he had. He had very much idea. He was staring at the idea in the eyes at the other side of the pond. The idea blinked twice and looked very, very confused and kind of done with the whole situation.

Lance’s eyes locked with the dragon’s but before they could lapse into another one of their (kind of familiar at this point) staredowns he decided to break it off with a wave. “Hi there!” he called out to the dragon.

The dragon stared for a moment longer, then turned around and disappeared into the forest. Lance yelped and scrambled up to his feet. He grabbed his walking stick and hurried after it, feeling quite like an old man chasing some pesky kids with his cane. “Hey you, wait!” he shouted. He had come all this way and the dragon thought it could just leave? Ha, not a chance.

Unfortunately, Lance had to go around the pond to get to where the dragon had been. Though the pond was small, that coupled with Lance’s injury made it sure that the dragon had long disappeared when he got there. That didn’t mean it would be too far away to hear him, though. “Only a coward would run from a cripple,” he yelled after the dragon and hobbled forward, cursing his stupid leg and the stupid trees with the stupid roots blocking his way.

He was so concentrated on not slipping and dying that he ran nose first to something right in front of him. Something that was dark and very distinctly dragon-shaped and was giving him a Look. Lance fell flat on his butt (when will it end?) and instinctively whacked at the thing with his stick. A bad move, he realised when the dragon’s tail lashed up and swatted the cane from his hand. It went flying and clattered to several meters from him. Lance rubbed his wrist. Fucking ouch.

The dragon growled at him in warning and Lance pumped his glare as full of poison as he possibly could. The dragon didn’t budge. Lance tried his best to stand up as gracefully as he could but it came out kind of wobbly. Well, whatever. It wasn’t like he needed to impress the dragon or anything. It should full well know just how bad his condition was and regret its actions.

“You,” Lance started and pointed at the dragon, his forefinger almost touching its nose. “are terribly rude.” He pointed to his stick. “Get me my cane.”

The dragon looked at him with an expression that clearly said _‘are you serious right now.’_ It didn’t move an inch.

Lance ground his teeth together. Where had the nice and helpful lizard from last night disappeared? It surely was nowhere nearby now. Lance threw his arms up. “Fine!” He unsteadily wobbled to his stick and picked it up. He kind of wanted to whack the dragon again but restrained himself. After all, _he_ had some common manners. Unlike the idiot who was still staring at him with an unimpressed look on its face.

The dragon made an impatient noise in its throat as Lance was walking back to his original spot. Lance rolled his eyes. “Geez, like you actually have someplace to be right now? Don’t think so, so calm the heck down.”

Now, the question was, would the dragon stand still while Lance drew it. Lance got a very strong inkling that that would not be the case. And, fuck, he had left all his stuff, including his journal and pen, back at the clearing. Ugh. There wasn’t really any way for him to get the dragon to follow him back there if it didn’t feel like going.

Lance let his eyes wander over the dragon’s form. It seemed much like it had before, perhaps a bit more grumpy than last time (if that even was possible). He angrily pointed back toward the clearing with his stick. (Hey, he was actually starting to like this thing!) “I need to get my stuff. C’mon.” He didn’t look back at the dragon, just started trudging back to the pond. To his surprise he could hear the dragon following him after a few moments. Huh.

The dragon followed him all the way back to the clearing (it was only about five minutes away) and stopped a few meters away from him when he collapsed next to his stuff. His foot was starting to seriously hurt at this point. Just because the dragon had to go and make him run across the forest playing chicken. He felt like whacking at it again.

Lance grabbed his journal and looked at his sketch from earlier. He compared it to the dragon who was staring at his book, obviously confused about what he was doing. The sketch wasn’t all that bad, to be honest. The head needed some modification, as did the tail and wings and he had to add the spiky fin-thingies that ran above the dragon’s spine from the tip of its tail all the way to its head. On its head the dragon had two dark red horn-like things. Except they were not horns, as horns can’t move. They were more like… ears? Maybe.

Lance wished he’d had some coloring pencils with him. Or a red pencil, mainly. Apart from the yellow eyes, the only colors the dragon had were red and black. Black was its main color but there were numerous red markings everywhere. All of its paws were bright red, as were its tail flippers. The spines running on its back were red too. It also had funny raccoon-like red markings around its eyes. How had he not noticed those before?

The dragon had apparently gotten bored with waiting as Lance ogled it. It pointedly stared at the journal and then at Lance, obviously demanding to know what the hell he was doing. Lance turned the book around and showed it his drawing. “I drew you.” The dragon slowly blinked at the picture, taking it in. “I mean,” Lance continued, “I drew this one from memory so there’s some mistakes. But luckily I have a live model now. Sit.”

Okay, maybe commanding the dragon like a dog was not the best thing to do at this moment. But ordering it around had seemed to work sufficiently enough before. Even if it hadn’t fetched him his cane. Lance sat down cross-legged and held his pen to the paper. “Smile! Oh wait you’re probably too sour to be able to do that, but try to look slightly less constipated, okay?”

The dragon was having none of this. It had sort of frozen in confusion as Lance had shown it the drawing but then it suddenly spurred into motion. It marched straight to Lance and tried to slap the book from his hands. Luckily Lance had expected this so he managed to yank the journal away from the dragon’s front paw. “Nuh uh. Nope. Don’t you dare, this is mine.”

The dragon hissed. Apparently, it didn’t enjoy being drawn. Too bad, this was happening. Lance wanted to make a good picture of it. To show Coran but also for other reasons. How often did he get a live dragon modelling (willingly or not) for him anyway? Never, that was when.

The dragon backed away a few steps and at first Lance thought it had given up. Then he saw the utterly _evil_ look on the thing’s face and fear was struck into his heart. What was it..? The dragon was eyeing his sketchbook maliciously, then it cast a quick, wicked look at Lance, opened its mouth and took a deep breath in.

Lance only realised what it was doing when he could see an orange glow emitting from its jaws. Oh no. Oh _hell_ no. Lance screeched and covered his journal with his body. “Don’t you dare, I’ve poured _hours_ into this thing. If you burn it I swear I’ll _skin_ you!”

The dragon didn’t spit fire at him which was good. Instead, it gave him a flat stare and turned around, obviously intending to leave. Now, Lance couldn’t have that. He needed his model. When the dragon turned its tail swished around in a wide arc. Lance grabbed it and yanked. This thing wasn’t going anywhere.

The dragon froze when it felt his tug. It twisted its head around to give Lance an incredulous stare. Lance stared back. At some point he had apparently lost the ability to be scared of the thing anymore. Now its angry expressions were more funny than anything else.

He grinned at the dragon and tugged its tail again. “C’mooon! I wanna draw you. Please. I’ll give you a muffin.” The dragon narrowed its eyes in contemplation. Oh, Lance could work with this. “Two muffins.” That did it. The dragon yanked its tail free from Lance’s hands and turned back to face him.

Lance ruffled through his back and grabbed one of Hunk’s new recipe blueberry muffins. He raised it up for the dragon to see. It looked at with its eyes narrowed in suspicion and sniffed it. “Hey, it’s quality food,” Lance insisted. He had never met anyone who hadn’t liked Hunk’s cooking. If dragons’ taste buds were so different from humans’ that it tasted bad from them, Lance wasn’t sure he wanted to associate with one anymore. He told the dragon that which made it snort.

“I’ll give you this one now, and the other after I’ve finished drawing. So you can’t bail on me. Alright?” The dragon nodded and stared at the muffin in Lance’s hand intently. Lance could agree, it smelled phenomenal. “Here comes, catch.”

Lance tossed the muffin toward the dragon’s head. The dragon trailed the muffin’s path with its eyes and then, faster than Lance could blink, snatched it to its mouth. Lance gulped. That was fast. And from what he had had time to see, the dragon had very, very sharp teeth. _It’s a vicious predator, remember?_ Lance’s mind whispered. _It’s kind are made to kill, have killed many, many people._ Lance shook the thoughts from his head. Just because dragons had killed Vikings it didn’t mean that this one had too. Had it?

Lance let his eyes wander over the dragon’s form. It was strong and graceful. The pointed claws on its paws could easily rip his stomach open like paper. The dragon was one of nature’s most efficient killing machines, and here it was, munching happily on a blueberry muffin, eyes closed and humming in contentment. Maybe there was another side to the whole killing thing the Vikings always were going on about. Other aspects, like Coran had said.

Lance grabbed his pencil and started to draw. He drew the dragon as it was in front of him, sitting with its tail curled around it. After it finished its muffin it opened its eyes and began to observe him. It seemed mostly relaxed but there was still an air of alertness about it. It seemed like it was waiting for something. Lance couldn’t stand the ongoing staring in silence for long. So he did what he always did when he needed to expel a tense situation. He started to blabber.

“Did you like the muffin. Never mind, I saw your face, of course you did. My buddy, Hunk, makes the best food. He’s _so_ good. But he’s not going to be a baker or a chef. You see, he’s like suuuper smart too. Far smarter than I am.” Lance sketched out the dragon’s head. Its eyes didn’t look anywhere as menacing when it was sitting right in front of him, intently listening to his words. “And he loves mechanics. He started an apprenticeship at the village’s main forge a few months ago. It was pretty awesome. He doesn’t admit it but _everybody_ thinks he’s going to inherit the forge when the old blacksmith retires.”

Lance moved onto the dragon’s torso and legs. He made sure to add the claws. “The forge has been making him pretty busy, though. I mean, it’s fine, I just wish…” Lance trailed off. Why was he talking about this? The dragon chirped curiously, urging him to continue. Lance glanced at it and offered a shaky smile. “I just wish I had a thing too. I guess I’m a bit envious or something.”

The dragon didn’t make a noise or move. Its silence was urging Lance to continue. His pen had stilled on the paper. “I mean, I’m happy for him, I really am. He’s my best friend. It’s just that… Everybody else my age already knows what they’re doing with their lives. And I… I can’t really _do_ anything, y'know. I just babysit and do odd jobs when other people are sick. So...” Lance cleared his throat. That had gotten way too deep way too fast.

“Anyway, I know you don’t care. Can you open a wing, I wanna draw it.” The dragon obeyed in silence. It had a weird indecipherable expression on its face, so Lance pointedly avoided its eyes. He concentrated on the open wing in front of him and, huh, he hadn’t actually ever seen the dragon’s wings wide open like that before. Well, apart from the night of the dragon attack but it had been far too dark to properly see anything. He kind of wanted to see it fly.

Like pretty much everything else with the dragon, the wing was sleek and black. The tips of the fingers holding the webbing were deep maroon. It was kind of pretty, actually. Lance opened a new page and started a detailed sketch of the wing, trying to get the proportions right.

The dragon was willing to hold the wing up for only about five minutes. Then it slumped down and gave Lance’s bag an insistent look. Guess this one didn’t have the most patience. “Alright alright,” Lance muttered when the dragon grumbled at his inaction. He pulled the bag into his lap and dug out another muffin. After a moment of thought, he picked one up for himself as well.

He tossed the dragon its treat and grinned as it started munching on it happily. “Guess you don’t get that much sugar if you’re a dragon,” he grinned. The dragon sniffled at him and rolled its eyes. Lance took a huge bite of his own muffin and sighed in bliss.

Hunk’s muffins really were something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I accidentally used English comma rules that I had specifically looked up for this fic in my essay and it got marked down so I hope you all appreciate the sacrifices I'm making to write this. 
> 
> Also, I needed a plot device so I created a literal plot hole that actually advances the plot, isn't that fun?


	3. Who the heck is this idiot talking about emotions and stuff?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google docs is just great because every time I start writing its like "it has been a week since you last opened this document :)"  
> I know google docs, i kn o w

 “Here,” Lance placed his journal in front of Coran. The book was opened to the page with his new dragon drawings on it. Lance eyed them with satisfaction, some of them had actually turned out pretty well. But the quality of his art was not why he was here. 

It was the morning after his latest visit to the forest to see the dragon. Lance had headed straight to the library after breakfast, eager to show his drawings to Coran and get more information out of the man. It was a gloomy day, rainclouds already gathering above the ocean on the horizon, and everybody seemed to be hurrying with their daily tasks to finish before the rain would eventually reach the village. Coran didn’t seem to care for hurrying, though, as the librarian had calmly been dusting some relics in the library when Lance had arrived.

After yesterday's successful forest trip Lance was full of energy. Last night he had had a hard time falling asleep, too caught up on the day's events. His mind had kept wandering back to the dragon, wondering what it was up to at that exact moment. With the precious drawing in his journal, he had had to stop himself from rushing to the library right then, in the middle of the night. He realised it was a bit weird to be so invested in this dragon thing, but he couldn't help himself. Something kept urging him to find out more about the dragon, and he knew the drawings would be a key to make Coran unlock his secrets.

Coran blinked in surprise when Lance pushed the drawings under his nose. He picked up the journal and examined the pictures closer, squinting slightly. He didn’t say anything, just stared. Lance watched in confusion as Coran's eyebrows climbed higher and higher toward his hairline. He couldn't help bouncing up and down on the soles of his feet, eagerly waiting for the man’s input. 

Finally, just as Lance was about to reach over and physically drag the answers out of the man, Coran turned to him, an undecipherable expression on his face. “Oh my,” he said in a chipper voice and motioned to the drawings, “These are rather detailed.” He seemed oddly perplexed by the pictures, as if he had never seen doodles like that before. Lance frowned, in his opinion they looked exactly like the ones in every book or pamphlet the Vikings regularly used, with his personal touch included, of course. Nothing worth raising eyebrows about them. 

Lance glanced at the book again. One page had a full body drawing of the dragon. It was just as Lance had seen it yesterday, sitting in a relatively relaxed position.(Lance had opted to leave the muffins out of the picture, though.) The other page had smaller and quicker sketches of its wings and paws and such. He couldn’t see anything odd about them. He gave Coran a curious glance, which seemed to go unnoticed. 

Coran cleared his throat. “Let us sit down.” He pulled out a chair for Lance and sat down on a wooden bench next to the table, still looking at the drawings in thought. Lance sat down as well, leaning his walking stick against the table on his right. Coran leaned his elbows on the table and pressed his fingertips together in front of his face. He looked rather goofy in that position, but Lance didn’t comment. If he didn't get answers right now, he'd probably implode. 

“I am afraid I don’t recognise this dragon,” Coran announced, and Lance’s felt his face fall. No. No, this was supposed to get him more information, this was supposed to help him go _forward_ with this thing. He opened his mouth to speak but Coran raised a finger to stop him. “However, that is what I expected. Here on Arus, we are a long, long way from where most of the dragon activity is centered. The buggers don’t really enjoy the cold here, no? And that is why the dragon attacks this island sees are a lot more harmless than those that harm some of our neighbours down in the south.” 

Lance blinked. Although he hadn’t known that, he didn't really see how it was supposed to help with this. Also, harmless? In what world were the dragon attacks here harmless, there was one at least once a month! Last month there had been two. He’d hardly call that harmless.

“So, what does that mean? We don’t know much about dragons here? I’ve been noticing that lately.” The last part came out a bit bitterly. The more he had paid attention to them, the more information he had realised he was missing. It was so frustrating. “Are you saying that someone on some other island might know it?” If that was the case, he’d be stumped. There was no way he’d manage to get anywhere without a ship. And going to another village on a trading ship… not only would that kind of a trip take weeks, the was no way he’d be allowed on one in the first place. He had tried. 

Unaware of his mental rambling, Coran continued the conversation: “Possibly, yes. Though charting different dragon types has never been a priority for anyone, well not in a way that would be of use for us here, anyhow. It is most often done only when a dragon with new and potentially very dangerous abilities is found. If this dragon of yours is rare and does not possess any notable abilities it is entirely possible that there are no records of it available whatsoever.” Coran sounded oddly cheerful while saying this. 

Lance sighed. Did his dragon have any special abilities? Well, it was smart, but he still had no idea whether that stood true for every dragon or just the one. It also liked muffins and was a bit of an asshole sometimes, but he didn’t think either of those would count. Plus, there was no way to describe any of those things to Coran without raising like a thousand red flags. ...But he really did need the information. 

“Coran?” he asked tentatively. This was going to be dangerous. Coran made a hand gesture urging him to continue. Lance tried to make his expression as neutral as possible. “Do you know if dragons are smart enough to understand human language?” Just a normal question, not oddly specific or suspicious at all, right? Oh well, what was the worst that could happen? (He could be straight up kicked from the village, that’s what.) 

Coran’s eyebrows climbed up to his hairline again. Lance started to sweat. Oh boy, this was a baaad idea.  

“Coran?” a voice suddenly called from the stairwell. A moment later the door to the library was pushed open. “Coran, I need your assistance with the– oh.” The chieftain of the village, Allura Altea, stepped in. Lance’s sweating intensified. “I see you have a visitor.” She gave Lance a once-over, and he gulped. He had only personally spoken to the chief about three times, each of them more nerve-racking than the other. Chief Allura was kind but very scary. Scratch that, she was downright terrifying sometimes. (There had been a few times Lance had gotten into trouble so big she was called in to deal with it. Even the memories made him shiver.) 

Chief Allura had been ruling for six years now, ever since she had turned twenty. Lance had been ten when she had assumed the leadership and, to be honest, he didn’t really remember the previous chief all that well. It had been some guy that had been voted to temporarily take the role after Allura’s father’s death nineteen years ago. Everyone had agreed that, should Allura want it, the position would be hers when she was old enough. To no one's surprise, she had done just that. 

Every old person in the village always went on about how much Allura was like her father. Strong, kind, and determined, but ruthless when needed. A good leader for their village. Lance had always admired her, safely from a distance. She was not a warrior, per se, but still someone he very much looked up to.  

Allura was still staring at him with sharp eyes, and Lance got a weird urge to bow or kneel or do something other than stand and gape like a fish. “You are looking fantastic today, chief.” His mouth decided to say. Allura’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Fuck.  

The chief’s lips pressed into a thin line and she turned to Coran. “Who is this?” 

Lance had to do everything in his power not to wheeze out loud. Fucking ouch. He was so low on her list of things that mattered that she didn’t even bother to ask him personally. Or remember who he was. Pidge would have a field day when they heard about this. (And they would, they always did somehow.) Lance conjured his face into a polite smile. He could still turn things around using his immaculate charm. Of course. 

Coran clasped a firm hand on Lance’s shoulder. “This boy here is Lance. He’s on a very noble quest for knowledge, and I have offered to help him with my many, many skills and the vast amount of intelligence we have stored here,” he made a wide arc with his arm, gesturing around the library. And wow, maybe Lance should start dragging Coran around with him to introduce him to people. The man seemed to be a lot better at that than he was. 

Allura, apparently too tired to care and ask for more information, nodded slowly. “Ah, yes, of course.” She cleared her throat and straightened herself. “It was nice meeting you, Lance, but I must take Coran with me now. Good day.” She grabbed Coran’s arm and practically dragged the man out of the room. Lance could spot Coran’s jovially waving hand in the doorway and then they were gone. 

...Alright. 

Lance almost jumped to the ceiling when a small, grey cat came dashing through the open doorway about a second after Coran and Allura's departure. It scanned the room and seemed disappointed to see only Lance standing there. He figured it was probably looking for Coran. Just like everybody else that day, it seemed. “You missed him by like two seconds,” Lance told it sullenly.

He grabbed his journal from the table and pressed it shut. So much for that, then. What now, was the question.

 

***

 

Lance did not have a proper job in the village. Most teens his age had some sort of apprenticeship or were enlisted in dragon training. But he had pretty much nothing. Despite his best efforts, Lance had never managed to get into the training program and he wasn’t all that interested in pursuing any particular craft. He couldn’t even follow in his parents' footsteps, as had been proven by ‘Lance burns something major down’ accidents number one and two. The first one had been a part of his father’s candlemaking workshop, which had been kind of understandable, with the flammability of candles and all. The second one had been the sails and a good portion of the masts of a fishing boat, not so understandable, and another reason why Lance wasn’t allowed on any vessels worth more than a barrel of fish. 

Last year his mother had forced him into an obnoxious job with one of the sheepherders but that assignment had prematurely ended as well, due to a disastrous parade when he had accidentally let the whole herd prance around the village center. He had quickly been jobless again after that. 

The problem was, or so Lance at least assumed, that none of these (or many other) jobs had been interesting enough for him. He didn’t have the longest attention span when it came to things he found boring, so. Accidents happened sometimes. And when it came to him, the accidents tended to be a bit more colourful than with most people. 

The village didn’t feed freeloaders though, so Lance had to do something to earn his bread. Due to his inability to stick with one job for longer than two weeks, this had left Lance with a very sporadic schedule. 

Somehow along the way he had managed to become the village’s number one guy to go to when someone needed an emergency babysitter. (As long as the kids in question were no more than six years old, otherwise adding Lance to the equation would skyrocket the amount of shenanigans the kids got into.) He had gotten a good deal of experience with children in his family and kids were generally hectic enough to keep his attention. Despite his faults, people tended to trust him with their children for some reason, which had lead to most of the village’s numerous babies adoring him.

Then there were the tailors. They had needed an extra pair of hands to repair clothes when one of their workers had been pregnant about a year ago. To his chagrin, someone had recommended Lance to take the job, and thus he ended up darning nasty Viking pants for nearly a month before they had found someone who complained less to pick up the job. The two ladies in charge of the shop had taken a liking to him during his time there though, and one of them had taught him to knit. Lance went over to help every now and then, but he couldn’t see himself sewing clothes for the rest of his life. It was a good way of earning 'I did something useful points' though. 

He had been bouncing from one odd job to another during the past year, so much that he knew nearly everyone in the village quite well and was familiar with most of the different crafts and jobs. Usually, he was hired for a few days to help when someone was sick or something, which suited him just fine as it left him with a lot of free time to do individual dragon training, or alternatively, sneak into the forest to try to befriend one. In any case, he had tried a little bit of every job there was but none of them had stuck. It had made sure that he knew for a fact that he wasn’t particularly talented in any area, although he did majorly suck in many of them. Never mind being skilled, he hadn’t even found anything he _liked_ to do 

Before, when he had still been aiming for the dragon hunting program, the joblessness hadn’t really bothered him that much. He had assumed it would be temporary and end when he finally made it to the program. Now, though, his job situation was beginning to be a bit of a dilemma for him, as there was no end goal in sight.

His parents had always been committed to supporting their son's dream to become a dragon hunter, and the quilt of having to eventually disappoint them was starting to feel heavy on Lance’s shoulders. He’d have to come up with something for himself and quick. But he was fresh out of ideas. 

Lance sighed and leaned his cheek on his palm. The motion made the sketchbook laid his lap shift and his pencil went once again happily rolling away. He crouched to retrieve it but was frozen by a loud clang coming from below. 

Lance was currently sitting in the stands surrounding the large ring the dragon training was held in. He had always liked to go there to watch the training in process in the hopes of learning useful tips and tricks that would help him get in. Hadn’t exactly helped. 

He had no idea what he was doing there now, having given up on the dragon business and all. He had half-heartedly opened his journal to sketch something when he had sat down, but the page remained empty. He had just ended up sinking into his thoughts and observing the lesson currently in session in the arena below. That particular batch of dragon trainees had started a few months ago, and some of them were already quite good. Some were… less so. 

Lance watched with minor interest as a dark-haired boy was chased around the ring by an angry Nadder. Shiro, the instructor for today, was yelling orders but they kept falling for deaf ears. Lance winced as the boy tripped and almost got ripped in half by the Nadder’s talons. He winced again when the boy was saved by a short girl who smacked the dragon squarely in the head with her war hammer in a very painful looking hit. The Nadder screeched and scrambled away from the boy. It went after the girl next, but was stopped by someone else’s tossed rope projectile. The precisely aimed rope got tangled in its feet and the poor dragon smacked to the ground. 

Lance turned his eyes away as a horde of teenagers descended on the Nadder. He had seen similar things happen dozens of times before and never felt anything about it, but it didn’t feel quite as right anymore to see the dragon smacked and prodded over and over again. There wasn’t anything he could have done to help the dragon though, and he knew the village needed trained fighters to protect it. It just made his stomach feel a bit uneasy now. Lance grimaced. He shouldn’t be thinking about things like this. Being kind of friends with one dragon was one thing, feeling empathy for the whole species was another, much worse issue altogether. And he wasn’t going to go that far, he couldn’t. Lance picked up his pen, grabbed his walking stick and rushed off. 

It was somehow a relieving thought that, even though it had been a dream of his for so long, when the next dragon attack came he wouldn’t have to be the one holding a weapon.

 

***

 

“So, do you like live in here or..?” 

Lance was at the clearing again. Yesterday’s gloomy weather had given way to a scorching hot and sunny summer day. Heat hung over everything like a second skin and made the air feel heavy to breathe in. It was the kind of day on which all you wanted was to nap and enjoy the heat while it lasted. The nature seemed to agree, as there had been no birds or other animals to be seen on Lance’s way here. They were probably chilling in their little nests, too. 

It had been nearing noon when Lance had decided he could go for a trip to the forest again. The village had been under a sleepy spell like the rest of the island, but Lance’s feet had demanded action. Especially since he had finally been freed from the stupid brace on his ankle. (He still had the walking stick, though.)  

And so he had set course to the now familiar clearing in the forest. When he had finally arrived, hot and sweaty, lo and behold, the dragon had been napping on the large boulder next to the pond. Lance had stared at its sleeping form from the forest for a few seconds, still quite incredulous that any of this was happening. 

The dragon had woken up when Lance had stepped into the clearing but immediately gone back to sleep after recognising him. Lance had decided to take that as a compliment, as the dragon apparently trusted him enough to sleep with him in its vicinity, and not as a sign that the lizard found him so boring or annoying that it preferred to be unconscious while he was around. He had meant to let it sleep for a while but it had soon stirred from its slumber when Lance sat down and opened his bag to take a drink. It probably smelled the excessive amount of muffins Lance had smuggled from the village’s kitchens.

Now the dragon was happily munching on one next to him. It stopped chewing and blinked at Lance when he asked the question. 

“I mean,” Lance continued, “this forest is pretty big and this is, what, the third time I find you here. Is this clearing your home or something?” 

The dragon shrugged noncommittally and Lance reached over to poke it with his cane. He knew how to play this game. “C’mooon, give me more than that,” he whined in his most annoying tone of voice. His mother always told him his whining was maddening, and Lance took serious pride in that fact. The dragon seemed to agree with his mother as it groaned in mock agony and tried to push Lance’s stick away with its front paws. Lance giggled. “Tell meeee!” 

The dragon sighed heavily and shook its head. Lance was confused. “No? No what? No you don’t live on this clearing?” The dragon nodded and Lance groaned. “Was that a ‘yes that statement was true’ nod or ‘yes I do live here’ nod?” The dragon crinkled its nose in a way Lance had learned to interpret as a frown. It gave him a very flat look and nodded again pointedly. Which… was not helpful at all. Well, he was aware that there hadn’t really been a way for the dragon to answer that question as they had only managed yes or no questions thus far. 

“We should come up with a better way of communication, this is getting kind of ridiculous,” Lance mused. The dragon snorted and Lance poked at it again. “No, I don’t have any ideas but you don’t have to be an ass about it. I just thought it would be cool to know more of your thoughts but I guess I don’t want that if you just keep making fun of me. You’ll just have to deal with _my_ amazing stories, then.”

The dragon didn’t rise to the bait but thoughtfully hummed instead. It seemed to be considering something in its head but Lance didn’t ask what it was. (It wasn’t like the dragon could tell him anyway.) He shifted and lowered himself so that he was laying on the ground and sighed in contentment. The grass felt blissfully cool against his back.

The two laid on the grass in silence for about ten minutes. Lance had shed his tunic about an hour ago and was now considering getting rid of his undershirt too. It was so hot, he felt like he was _melting_.

It didn’t take long for him to grow restless again. Though the sleepy heat was calming him down somewhat, he had never been good at sitting still. Also, he was practically sweating his skin off and felt super gross. His attention was snatched by a fish that splashed in the pond next to them and Lance got an excellent idea. He bounced to his feet (ouch) and started pulling off his shirt.

The dragon made an odd noise and Lance grinned at it, midway out of his shirt. “I’m going swimming!” he declared and tossed the shirt to the pile with his other stuff. He quickly shimmied out of his pants, too, so that he was standing only in his underwear. The dragon was giving him the stink eye for some reason.

“What?” Lance asked defensively. “I’m hot!” The dragon snorted loudly and Lance blinked in surprise. Wait. Was that… a joke? About his appearance? He gasped. “HEY! I meant hot as in… you ass! The temperature! Although,” he placed a hand on his hip in a fake cool pose, “I think I’m hot in both ways. Just look at this bod!” He winked seductively and motioned toward his completely muscle-less stomach. The dragon very pointedly looked away. “I’m gonna whack you again,” Lance warned, but he couldn't stop the grin from making its way to his face. Never would have thought that dragons could have a sense of humor. 

The water was pleasurably cold when Lance poked a toe in. The pond didn’t seem to be all that deep, only a few meters, but Lance knew that what seemed like the bottom from here was usually just the top layer of about a meter’s worth of mud. Most of the edges of the pond were covered in lily pads but there was a good portion open for swimming too. A bunch of water striders were dancing by the stony edges of the pond, skittering away when Lance wiggled his toes in the water.

Lance sat down on the edge and plopped his other foot in the water as well. Perfect. He hopped in with a splash and sighed in bliss as the water washed the heat and sweat away from his body. He could be here all day long. 

He floated on his back for a while, staring at the fluffy white clouds slowly moving across the bright sky. A grasshopper was chirping somewhere, filling the air with a relaxed atmosphere. A curious fish brushed against his right left and made him giggle. One of the clouds kind of looked like a dragon, Lance noticed. It had two wings and a long, wispy tail that snaked across the blue arch stretching above the forest.

Lance righted himself in the water and turned toward the dragon who was still napping by the boulder. He had to constantly scoop water with his hands to stay afloat, so raising one arm was a bit tricky. Especially since his left foot was still pretty much out of commission. Luckily he was a proficient swimmer so pointing at the cloud wasn’t too hard. “Look, it’s you,” he told the dragon cheerfully. It opened its eyes and glanced up to him. After seeing his pointing hand, it tilted its head toward the sky, and Lance made a snap decision to exploit his chance of getting the dragon unawares. He pulled his right hand back in the water and created one of the biggest splashes he had managed in his entire life.

Due to years’ worth of practise fights with his siblings and Hunk, Lance was an expert splasher. The wave of water he created hit the dragon squarely in the face, causing it to jump approximately a hundred meters in the air and let out an undignified squeak. Lance cackled. Then he took in the dragon’s appalled face howled. That was something special, right there. 

“Oh my– Your expression, I can’t..!” he was practically wheezing now, and almost breathed in a lungful of water. The dragon did not seem particularly impressed by any of this. It scrunched its nose and narrowed its eyes at him in an obvious challenge. Then it marched forward, and Lance had just enough time to cover his face before a huge wave of water, created by the dragon’s tail, washed over him, and wow, that was a good splash indeed. Lance blinked up at the dragon and shook water from his hair. He grinned menacingly. “Oh, it’s on now!”

Lance soon found out he was at a disadvantage when the water fight started proper. First of all, he was the only one in the water and thus had a lot less mobility than the dragon who had all of its limbs (and a tail!) free for fighting purposes. Meanwhile, Lance could pretty much only use one arm at a time. Second of all, the dragon had a shield. “Cheating!” Lance gasped in indignation when the dragon covered its head with a wing to block his splash _again_. It peeked from under the wing and chirp-laughed at him. What an ass. 

It was an all-out war after that. In the end, Lance ended up majorly losing the fight, but only because his injured leg made him tire quicker! He made sure to voice this out loud too. After both of them had gotten the need to splash out of their systems Lance dragged himself up from the pond. He collapsed on the grass next to the dragon, panting heavily. That had been a serious workout, but at least he wasn’t so hot anymore. 

“Man,” Lance wheezed while drying his face with his undershirt, “I’m beat.” The dragon hummed in acknowledgement. It had flopped to its side, wings legs haphazardly sticking in every direction, and seemed to be trying to absorb as much of the sunlight as physically possible. Lance could relate to that, autumn would be coming soon and then it would be about four months of practically no sunlight at all. They needed to store all the sun they could get during the summer months. 

Lance’s stomach growled loudly, startling them both. He sat up and looked around for his bag where he had had the foresight to pack some food. (Something else than muffins, though there were still plenty of those left too. He was well-prepared this time.) With a swipe of its tail, the dragon pushed the bag toward him, obviously expecting to be given something (muffins) in return. Lance muttered thanks and went on digging.

Summer storms on Arus were sneaky and always managed to take everybody by surprise. One moment it would be sunny as ever, the next the sky would be spitting rain or hailstones on everybody's heads. Lance had just wolfed down his sandwich (and the dragon several more muffins, did its stomach have no bottom? New research question?) when the sky decided to open up. The water came pouring down in a second, immediately drenching both Lance and the dragon in icy water.

Lance screeched and scrambled to collect his stuff. He shot to his feet, then almost toppled over again as he had once again forgotten his stupid ankle. “OW! Shit. Shit shit shit, c’mon!” Lance’s journal was in his bag, and he did not want to have it ruined. He wrapped his bag in his tunic to give it some more cover, grabbed his cane and started rushing toward the edge of the forest. There would at least be some more cover over there, though there was no way he’d make it home without getting his journal wet. Lance swore to himself. His journal had about five months of work in it, it getting messed up would more than suck, putting it mildly.  

Suddenly, the rain stopped. Or more accurately, it stopped falling on him. Lance stopped in his tracks and looked up in confusion. Something dark and large was covering him completely from the rain, something… oh. Lance gaped at the dragon who had raised one wing above Lance’s head, preventing even a drop of rainwater falling on him. It didn't look bothered by the rain itself, but had clearly rushed to his aid when it realised what was happening.  

Noticing Lance’s unwavering, amazed stare, the dragon looked away, as if embarrassed. A small smile made its way on Lance’s face. The dragon always acted so grumpy but it _did_ have a soft and nice personality on the inside. Sweet, even. Doing things like this… Lance felt oddly touched by this relatively small action, maybe because the dragon didn't seem like the type to normally do something like this. It made him feel just a little bit special.

“Thank you,” he breathed out, his voice coming out wobbly and more emotional than he had meant for it to. “Really. I… Thank you. This means a lot to me.” He was talking about more than just this incident, and he hoped the dragon would get the message. They hardly knew each other, and yet it had been so nice to him all around. It made something warm settle deep in his chest. After his words, the dragon glanced at him with wide eyes, then quickly looked away. It seemed perplexed about something but Lance decided to let it be. It didn’t seem like the dragon was in the mood for conversation, as it was awkwardly shifting next to him and keeping its eyes away, all the while rain kept pouring over its form. 

They stood there in silence for about a minute, until Lance started reassessing their situation and started to giggle uncontrollably. Here he was, standing in the rain in his wet underwear with a messy bundle of stuff in his arms, looking at the dragon like it was the saviour of the seven seas or something. (It kind of was though, for him at least.) 

The dragon glanced at him from the corner of its eye. Then it started briskly walking and Lance had no other option but to follow suit, as he did not want to get wet. They walked in a half-awkward silence for several minutes, the rain muffling the sound of the forest around them. The steady patter against the dragon's open wing above him coupled with the curtain of water falling everywhere around him, made Lance feel like he was cocooned in his own little world, safe and dry. He kept glancing at the dragon but it didn’t seem to notice his insistent stares. Or maybe it was just avoiding his eyes again. In any case, it didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the rain, maybe because the droplets just rolled right off its scales without making it wet at all. Unfair, truly.

After a few more minutes of silence, Lance couldn’t take it anymore. “Where are we even going?” he inquired. As an answer, the dragon stopped suddenly. Lance’s reflexes were too slow on the uptake to stop himself in time, so he walked straight into the rain again. He jumped back with a yelp and gave the dragon a glare. “Could’ve warned me,” he mumbled. No answer followed. 

The dragon had led him to a small cave. Its entrance was nestled in the terrain in such a way that Lance would have passed it without noticing a thing, had the dragon not been looking straight at it. Lance whooped in joy, the cave would make a perfect shelter from the rain. Unless there was a bear or something living in it which would be less than ideal. 

Lance was about to turn to the dragon to thank it for helping him again but it was already moving. What was the urgency all of a sudden? Together they trudged to the cave entrance. Lance entered first and the dragon swiftly followed after. 

The cave was small. It hardly had enough room for the two of them, even though they both were rather skinny specimens of their respective species. The crampedness hardly mattered to Lance at the moment though, anything went as long as it was dry. Lance set his walking stick against a wall and sat down. He scrutinised his clothes for a moment and determined that they had all gotten far too wet for him to put any of them on if he didn’t want to freeze. Underwear it was, then. 

The dragon shuffled around awkwardly in the tiny space and Lance found his eyes drifting to its leg. “Your wound is almost all gone, isn’t it. It looks a lot better,” he pointed out. It was true. What had been an open cut about a week ago was now just a thin stripe against the dark scales. Dragons’ regeneration abilities really were amazing. He glanced at his own leg. Unfairly amazing, to be honest. 

The dragon glanced at him and nodded. Lance frowned slightly, did it seem oddly uncomfortable all of a sudden? His frown deepened when the dragon started inching back toward the cave’s entrance. 

“You’re leaving already?” he asked, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice. The dragon’s eyes shifted between him and the entrance. It nodded uncertainly, taking another step away from him. Then it nodded again, surer this time, and clambered out. It had disappeared into the misty rain before Lance had time to open his mouth and say goodbye. 

Oh. 

Lance sat on the cold cave floor for a long while, freezing and wondering what he had done wrong to spook the dragon away like that.

He couldn't figure it out.

 

***

 

About three hours later Lance finally made it back to the village. The rain had subsided by then, leaving the forest lush with color and smelling divine. Lance couldn’t quite enjoy the weather though, as he was feeling gloomy in his damp clothes. The lazy atmosphere of earlier had been washed away by the rainshower, and the village seemed lively as ever when he neared it.

He had just reached the edge of the town when he heard a sudden yell coming from behind him. He had time to register the pounding footsteps and pray to the gods before he was hit by something heavy. And furry. And very, very excited for some reason. Lance collapsed on the ground with the weight on top of him and groaned loudly. What now? What else so make this day even worse than it already was? 

“Smiley, no! Down!” Someone yelled from behind him and Lance was released. He grumbled and pushed himself to sitting, too emotionally fragile to try to stand up yet. He watched as the large Jämthund that had pounced on him was being severely chastised by her owner. Olia, one of the dragon fighters slash the village’s only official hunter offered her hand to help Lance up. “Shit. I’m so sorry, Lance. She didn’t see your cane, are you okay?” 

Lance dusted his pants and bent over to pet the excited dog next to him. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he assured her, trying not to wince. That had been slightly embarrassing. More than slightly, actually. “What were you two up to?” he asked to change the subject. Marco definitely didn't need to know about this. 

Olia grinned mischievously. “Just an adventure. I was planning on catching some game, a deer or something, but Smiley got a whiff of a dragon halfway through. Didn’t find the sucker though, would’ve snapped its neck if I had.” She tapped the battle axe hanging on her back. 

A dragon? Lance’s breath caught in his throat. “...Where?” he croacked. Worry washed over him. Olia was a great fighter, if she somehow found his dragon… 

Olia was staring at him weirdly, startled by his sudden change of expression. Lance tried to school his face down, he needed to know which dragon she had been tracking. He cleared his throat. “Where, um, where were you hunting?” He topped the question off with a dashing smile, hoping that Olia wouldn't catch his previous slip up.  

Olia narrowed her eyes slightly. “I… don’t think I should be telling you that, actually. I know that you’re all about,” she lowered her voice to do a mock imitation of Lance, “‘killing more dragons than any Viking ever’ but you really are not equipped for that yet. Your mother would kill me if you got yourself hurt because of something I told you.” 

Lance groaned in frustration.”No! I mean, I’m not gonna go after it, I promise! Just please tell me where it was, I’m curious!”  

Olia was beginning to look weirded out by Lance’s urgency. She scratched the back of her neck. “Riiight. Well, Smiley found the trail near the Burnt Birch Bridge but it disappeared soon after.” Lance released a breath. That was nowhere near where his dragon seemed to hang out. Burnt Birch Bridge was to the West of the village, the clearing was to the East. 

“I’m not going to tell you which way it was going though,” Olia continued. “I’ll probably go check again tomorrow in case the fucker comes back. Maybe I’ll finally be able to get a proper fireproof dragonskin cloak out of it, that would be neat. Nothing protects you from fire like the source material, and I'm beyond tired of getting burns.” 

Olia’s last words made something twist in Lance’s stomach. He was glad it must have been some other dragon Smiley had smelled but the idea of Olia, or any other Viking for that matter, finding his dragon and trying to hunt it made his skin crawl. A sudden fear washed over him. He wasn’t, like, making the dragon believe humans were nice, was he? The dragon was smart but if it approached other humans besides him, in the worst scenario it would– Lance gulped.  

“Now, if I hear you’ve gone there, I swear to the gods I’ll make Smiley throw up in your bed or something,” Olia went on, oblivious to Lance’s inner turmoil. “Gods know we’ve lost enough good folk to those beasts, nobody needs you going out there to look for dragons on your own and getting yourself killed, you hear me? Don’t make your family worry about your stupid ass any more than they already are!” 

The words cut to Lance like he was made of paper. If they knew what he was doing in the forest pretty much every day… If anyone knew he was regularly hanging out with one of their mortal enemies without sparing a thought to the safety of his village… Guilt started gnawing in his gut. They had always been so supportive of him and yet…  

Olia was frowning at him. “Boy, are you alright? You’re being a lot more quiet than usual. And I mean a lot.” Lance nodded, which did little to ease Olia’s confusion. she clasped his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get your chance sooner than later.” She leaned closer and winked. “Maybe even sooner than you’d think.” 

With a rough pat on Lance’s back that made him wheeze, Olia ended the conversation. She started heading toward the town square, Smiley happily trotting beside her. 

Lance’s mind was too busy worrying about everything that was currently happening in his life, from the fear of everybody finding out about his secrets to wondering if the dragon hated him now since it had just left, to completely concentrate on her last statement and what it could mean. He should have, though. He really should have.  

But why had it left? Had he said something wrong?

 

***

 

“So, how’s your research going?” Pidge was sitting on top of a fish barrel, drawing scary-looking diagrams in her journal and absently watching as Lance and Hunk tried to drag a large wooden beam up a ladder. They were on repair duty, again. This time it was a part of a hoist designed for moving stuff in and out of ships. Hunk knew how it worked, Lance followed commands like 'lift' and 'no, not like that, what are you even trying to do?' 

Hunk frowned from under the beam. “Research? What research? Why don’t I know of any research? What are you talking about?” 

“I’m talking about Lance’s dragon research. He didn’t tell you?” 

Lance winced and tried to hide behind the beam. No such luck. He was sitting on top of the hoist, and thus, very visible. 

Hunk gave him a confused and just a slightly disappointed look. “Dragon research? Lance, I thought we agreed that you’d drop the dragon stuff for a while. What are you doing?” 

Lance grimaced. He had promised to do that, hadn’t he? And at the moment of the promise, he had actually been planning on doing just that. What a failure that plan had been. “Yeah, well,” he mumbled, “I promised to stop trying to kill them, you didn’t specify anything about research." True enough, if you squinted hard. 

Hunk considered this. He nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair enough. As long as you’re safe, y’know.” Lance had time to release a sigh of relief before Hunk continued. “But what are you doing research about? Since when do you do research at all?” 

Pidge snorted from her fish barrel. “Wow, burn.” 

Hunk frowned at her. “No! Not like that. I’m just saying that it’s a bit unusual for Lance, that’s all. Not that that's a bad thing.” He turned to look at Lance. “What are you researching?” 

Lance sighed. There would be no getting out of this one, would there? He sat down in a more comfortable position and stretched his feet. “Well, since I realised I had a lot of free time–” 

“Because you fell in a hole and busted your ankle?” Pidge piped in. 

Lance sniffled. “No. It was before that, too, I don’t know why you keep bringing up this utterly _irrelevant_ detail.” 

“It’s funny, that’s why,” Pidge snickered. Lance stuck out his tongue at her.  

Hunk shook his head in defeat. “Guys, I really want to know. Let him speak, Pidge.” 

“So anyway,” Lance drawled. “I realised I didn’t actually know all that much about dragons. Besides, you know, what everyone knows. So I decided to find out.” 

Hunk seemed a bit surprised. “Oh okay. Grab that end,” he pushed the bean upwards and Lance almost toppled over. “Sorry!” 

“So what have you found out?” Pidge yelled over Lance’s whining. The beam was heavy, and he was injured! Why did he have to do this again? 

Lance wracked his brain. What had he found out? Not all that much to be honest. “The library man is weird,” he declared. 

Hunk laughed. “Coran, right? I bet.”

 

***

 

Maybe it just didn’t want to be around him anymore. He knew he could get pretty annoying. 

It stung more than it should have.

 

***

 

“Attention, please,” chief Allura called from the dais she was standing on. After a few curses and a suspicious clang, the villagers gathered in the town hall quieted down. 

That morning all villagers had been called into the town hall for an announcement. Most people seemed confused about what was to happen, Lance included, but it didn’t seem like anything terrible had happened, so nobody was dead or anything. (What did it say about their village that most of the times when there was a call for a meeting it meant that somebody had died?) 

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Lance mumbled to Hunk who was standing next to him. He, Hunk and a half-asleep Pidge were standing at the edge of the crowd, Lance and Pidge craning their necks to see over the heads of the people in front of them. Hunk didn't have that problem. 

Hunk shook his head. “I don’t know. But I hope it’s nothing bad. I mean, it’s-” 

“Right, then,” the chief interrupted Hunk’s train of thought. “I shall begin. Over the past two weeks, I have been discussing our dragon problem with my dragon fighters. I know we all are used to it by now, but some of you might have noticed that the number of attacks has been increasing during the past few years. We believe this is because a nest has been built somewhere near our island.” 

The crowd began to murmur in distress. Lance knew there hadn’t been any dragon nests near Arus in a long time.  He was still aware that they were bad news, though. A nest meant more dragons, which in turn meant more attacks on the village and their fishing boats. 

Allura cleared her throat and the crowd fell silent. “Though we do not currently know the whereabouts of said nest, we must make preparations for what it will bring in the future and make plans to locate and destroy it. It likely that there will be even more attacks from now on, and we need our most capable Viking on the ships to locate the nest. If we wait too long to get rid of this problem it will only grow stronger. 

“As I mentioned, the dragon warriors and I have been planning ways to proceed. It is crucial that we increase both our defensive power as well as our offence. We have decided on two immediate ways of action. 

“Firstly, we must prepare a fleet for exploration. The purpose of these voyages will not be to destroy the nest, or even confront any dragons if at all possible, but to locate where the dragons are coming from. Only then will we sent out our full concentrated power. I plan on us having found and destroyed the nest before the first snow falls.” 

Allura got a wave of cheers after that, which she accepted with a curt nod. Lance knew some of the most hot-headed Vikings had been craving for some serious action for a while now, his secret missions to the tavern to listen to drunk Vikings rambling had taught him that much. (They had also taught him many interesting swear words that he was too scared to even think about repeating.) The coming search for a dragon nest would surely satisfy even the most bloodthirsty Vikings out there. Though Allura had said that no contact with dragons was necessary at this point, Lance was sure it would come to that eventually. Arusian Vikings had never been too good at sneaking. 

“Before the first snow?” Hunk mumbled to Lance’s ear. “That’s cutting it kind of close, don’t you think? I mean, didn’t that one village down South spend like ten years trying to find theirs? How is she planning on finding it? It’s not like they leave a trail!” 

“Yeah, yeah, but what’s the other thing? Are we gonna get, like, new fancy guard towers or something?” Lance whispered back. He had to admit, he was a bit excited by all this. He didn’t want to kill dragons anymore, but an adventurous voyage to the unknown oceans seemed pretty cool. Would they allow him on one? He could already imagine himself, dusted by the salty ocean gale and battling the stormy waters with his shipmates, gazing forlornly to the horizon and reminiscing about the days long since passed. 

Okay, that probably wasn’t going to happen. But he was pretty sure he would make a good rigger with his excessive tree-climbing experience. And he was commonly known to be jobless, so maybe someone would let him on board. Then again, everybody and their dead grandparents remembered the ‘Lance burns something major down’ accident number two so maybe his chances weren’t so great. 

“In addition to that,” chief Allura continued after everybody had calmed down, “we are beginning a new dragon training program.” 

Lance’s jaw fell open. Wait, what? 

“Currently only those who are aiming to be dragon fighters receive training. We have concluded that this must change, as everybody is in danger of being attacked. It is important that every Viking knows the basics of self-defence and dragon fighting,” Allura went on explaining. 

Hunk and Pidge were both staring at him, Lance could feel it. He kept his eyes focused on Allura, frozen still and scared of what his friends would see on his face if he turned to look at them. What was this? There would be a new training program? For everybody? Why _now?_

“We have decided that all people between fifteen and twenty-five, as well as anyone older who is willing, are going to attend. The lesson groups will be divided by age. Further details on the practicalities will come later, as we are still organizing. Unless you have other important commitments, the training will be mandatory. The first training sessions will begin within a week. That’s all.” 

The whole hall exploded in an uproar as Allura finished. It seemed like everybody was happy about this. A few teens in front of Lance let out loud whoops of excitement. 

Lance felt like a statue. His mind was whirring with one thing on top of another. He had a hard time processing all this. It had been no more than nine days since he had given up on his lifelong dream and now, out of nowhere, he was going to get an opportunity he had been yearning for for years. 

Honestly, it felt like a joke. 

For a moment, he let himself pretend. Maybe he could be a dragon fighter, after all. This would be an excellent chance to prove himself, to finally achieve things and make himself feel worthy of something. Maybe he could learn to kill dragons, no he was sure he could eventually do it. He had been practising for it for years.

The image of his dragon, happily munching on a muffin and quietly grumbling at his shit jokes flashed in his mind. 

He could, except he didn’t want to, not anymore. Dragon fighting was not a thing that was going to happen for him. Or at least it wasn’t supposed to be, anymore. But now, with this new program, it was something he’d have to do, wasn’t it? There was no way he could convince anybody of him having ‘other important commitments’ or whatever. He had nothing more than time. And, even if he- 

“...ance?” Lance was jolted out of his reverie by Pidge who, alongside Hunk, was peering at his face in utter confusion. He blinked rapidly and shook his head to dismiss the thoughts. They would have to wait for later. 

“What?” he asked, sounding a lot more defensive than he had intended. Then the realization hit him. Of course, his friends were expecting him to be ecstatic about this. He grimaced inwardly. There would have to be a lot of pretending in the future if he intended to keep his changed attitude hidden. Time to put on his best act, then. 

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Pidge asked. “Why aren’t you jumping up and down and yelling like a lunatic?” 

“Did you, like, go into some sort of shock or something?” Hunk crouched over to peer deep into his eyes. He wasn’t that far off, to be honest, Lance thought bitterly. 

He crossed his arms. “Who, me? Pfft, you know me, I’m just such a,” he fired finger finger guns, “cool person. I’m just chillingly taking in the news. You know, coolly. Like a puddle of ice.” 

“What the hel is a puddle of ice?” Pidge muttered but stopped looking at him like they were expecting him to sprout a second head. 

Hunk stood up straight and turned to Pidge. “Are you going to participate?” he asked them. “Or does you science count as other commitments? Wait, are you even fifteen yet?” 

Pidge got a wicked look on their face. “The answers to those questions are ‘probably’, ‘yes if I threaten them’, and ‘who knows’. You can try to figure out which is which.” 

“You’re fifteen if you threaten them?” Lance piped in. This was good, this was familiar. He could concentrate on this and stop thinking about everything bad for a while. 

Pidge rolled their eyes at him. “Yes, Lance, that was obviously the answer to that one. I wonder what this new program is like, though. They aren’t going to make it as thorough as the actual training, right? I mean, I definitely don’t have time for that.” 

Hunk tapped his chin in thought. “Oooh, I wonder if there’s going to be a lot of actual dragon fighting or of it’s just theory. I would prefer it to be just theory, because, like, they spit fire. Dragons, I mean, not the instructors. Fire on people. Not a good idea.” 

Lance snorted. “You work at the forge, Hunk. How are you afraid of fire?” Then, because he realised he really didn’t want to go into this without his best friend, who definitely had passable other commitments: “You’re gonna join though, right?” 

Hunk hummed in thought. “I mean I guess? Yeah, I think those skills are good to have. Like, especially if there really is an actual nest, which by the way, terrifying. I mean, if I'm going to end up face to face with a dragon, I’d rather know how to kill it. Still, would prefer to not end up in that position in the first place. But I’ll join.” 

Kill it. Something twisted in Lance’s gut but he opted to ignore it. Vikings killed dragons all the time. Him making friends with one didn’t mean anything had changed. And, for the foreseeable future, he’d have to pretend like killing dragons was still something he was okay with. No, he’d have to pretend he was very much into it, thanks to past Lance’s continuous boasting and obsession. 

Or, alternatively, he could just walk into the forest and simply never come back to deal with his problems. Being a forest hermit for the rest of his days would probably not be all that terrible. He already had a cave and everything. 

Who was ke kidding, this was going to be a terrible mess, he just knew it.

 

***

 

“So you three want to be in the same group, then?” Olia, who was looking extremely bored, was sitting at a table in the town hall with about a bajillion pieces of paper in front of her. 

The morning after the chief’s announcement all of the to-be dragon trainees had been told to sign up with her or Coran, who was manning another desk a little ways away, to be divided into groups. Lance did not envy their job in the slightest. Viking were a messy bunch, and trying to sort them into fitting groups on a day’s notice must have been a painful task. 

“Yes, please,” Lance answered as chipperly as humanly possible, earning him a murderous glare from Olia. “You can’t divide up the gang.” He motioned to Hunk and Pidge who were vigorously nodding behind him. 

Olia narrowed her eyes at that. “With how much trouble you three have gotten into, it might actually be safer for everybody if you were in different groups.” 

Lance and Hunk gasped in unison. Pidge just rolled her eyes like a cool person. Lance aimed his best puppy eyes at Olia. Attending dragon training was already going to be a problem, but doing it without his friends would be just miserable. He jutted out his bottom lip to increase the effect. “Olia, pleeease. You wouldn’t do that to us. You’re nice!” 

Olia looked at their pitiful faces and faked an evil cackle. “Oh, I have all the power now, don’t I? What can you give me in return?” 

Pidge grumbled with passion. “Just put us in the same group. I won’t attend otherwise.” 

Lance pressed a hand to his chest and squealed. “Aww, Pidgeon. You _do_ care!” 

Hunk laughed and turned toward Olia. “We’ll try to minimize the trouble, promise! We know this is very serious, right guys?” 

Lance, who was currently being furiously poked by Pidge, tried his his best to right himself. “Right. Serious. We’re all very serious.” It came out very unconvincing but Pidge nodded along nonetheless. 

Olia sighed, long and deep. “Fine. I guess putting you together is like concentrating the damage in a single group or something. She frowned. “I just hope I don’t have to be the one who has to tell you off when you’re trying to stuff a sheep into a catapult. Again.” 

Lance huffed. “Has anybody tried shooting sheep at dragons? I don’t think so,” he muttered. “It might even have worked, you can’t know that it wouldn’t have!” He might still be a bit bitter about that particular incident. Hunk pat his shoulder solemnly, his reliable brother in arms. 

Olia scrambled through her papers and laid one in front of her. “Right. I’ll put you in group two. Here’s to hoping that I don’t have to deal with that one.” She muttered the last part more quietly, but not quiet enough for the trio not to hear. Lance was pretty sure that was intended. 

Olia jotted their names on the list. “There. Now bugger off- Oh wait!” She waved a hand to the cane that Lance was still forced to drag around everywhere for some reason. “Lance, are you okay to attend? How long till your leg’s good?” 

Lance shrugged. “I mean, it feels mostly fine already. I don’t think I even need this stick anymore, but Hunk won’t let me get rid of it.” 

“That’s because you were told to use it by a professional, Lance,” Hunk helpfully pointed out. 

Pidge snickered. “Because you got stuck in a hole, remember?” 

Lance opened his mouth in rebuttal but Olia cut him to it. “Go argue somewhere else, I don’t have time for that. Lance, go get your foot checked. Training starts in a few days.” She pulled an acorn out of nowhere and tossed it at Lance’s head. It bounced off happily. “Now go away, you are holding the line.” 

The trio turned to give way to a very grumpy looking girl and made their way out of the town hall. Lance started quietly whistling to himself, trying to make the worries about the following weeks of dragon training disappear. Didn’t help much. 

“You are being oddly calm about this,” Hunk commented as they sauntered toward the town square. “I thought you’d be more hyper about this. Finally getting to start achieving your dream and all.” 

Lance imagined the numerous dragons he had seen getting beaten up during his spying sessions at the dragon ring. The same dragons that were currently locked up in dark and tiny cages, soon to be smacked and prodded and disturbed by him and his friends. He didn’t feel so good. 

“Do you think dragons have emotions?“ his mouth asked out of nowhere. Shit, why had he done that? He wasn't supposed to talk to Hunk and Pidfe about that. He kept his eyes forward, not wanting to see his friends’ faces after such a strange question. 

It took him about five seconds to realise that Hunk and Pidge were no longer walking beside him, as they had both stopped walking several meters ago. Lance turned to look at them. 

“What?” 

Pidge was looking at him with an odd look on their face. “What do you mean do they have emotions?” Their voice sounded unsteady and a little bit off. Oh no, this was bad. “Of course they don’t. They wouldn’t go around killing things if they did.” Their voice wavered a bit at the end. 

Hunk tried to place a calming hand on Pidge’s shoulder but they smacked it away, giving Lance an accusing stare. Lance immediately felt bad about asking such an inconsiderate question. Pidge had only recently started acting more open after their family’s disappearance. He really shouldn’t have brought up something like that. What had he even been thinking? 

Lance hung his head in shame. “I’m sorry, I just-” Just what? He had no idea. This was exactly why he couldn’t tell his friends about the dragon in the forest. It would just end up hurting them. Lance never wanted to make his friend hurt. 

Hunk took a few steps toward him and crouched to peer into his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay, Lance? You have been acting a bit weird lately. Are you… you aren’t sick or something, right? Oh my god, are you _dying_?” 

Lance sighed and interrupted Hunk before he could work himself to crying. “No, Hunk. Calm down. There’s just… been a lot on my mind lately, alright? Pidge, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” 

Pidge gave him a long, hard stare. Then they finally nodded and Lance let out a sigh of relief. “It’s fine, I guess. But what were you thinking about? You aren’t having second thoughts about this dragon thing, are you?” 

Oh, if only they knew. Lance grimaced. “Nope, just thinking. And stuff.” Stuff being treason and lying. Only after closing his mouth did he realise that he could have told them something. Not everything, but something to get them to understand that he didn’t want to do this anymore. Pidge had even served him the opportunity on a silver platter. 

But they would demand an explanation, wouldn’t they? It would be best to carry everything by himself, even though that made his heart feel heavy. 

His two best friends had enough on their plates without him adding his problems to the mix, after all.

 

***

 

Lance needed to make amends. He had no idea what he had done to spook the dragon away last time, but he needed to find it and apologise as soon as possible. He had only been sneaking into the forest for about a week now, but somehow the dragon had become an important factor in his life. He was pretty sure that he even considered it his friend at this point. 

And, coincidentally, the dragon was his only friend who he could vent about this dragon training business without being charged with treason. (Well, Hunk and Pidge probably wouldn’t go that far but still.) Anyhow, the dragon was the only person that wouldn’t hate him for what he said so it was going to be the receiver of his frustrated thoughts. If he managed to find it and apologise for whatever he had done wrong last time, of course. 

Lance had always managed his frustration and sadness by letting it all out in a big and messy monologue. Ever since he had been small, whenever there was something urgent that bothered him, he’d get his mom or dad or Hunk and sit down with them. If he didn’t want to tell anybody what his problems were, he’d just sneak into his hiding place in that one oak tree in the forest and talk to his stuffed cat toy. That never worked out quite as well, though, even if Blue was a great listener. 

So, the dragon. Except it wasn’t there. 

The clearing was once again empty when he arrived. He was unsure if he should be worried or not. Somehow his dragon (and when on earth had it become ‘his dragon’) always seemed to manage to find him when he came. But it might have been mad at him now and not want to see him again. What if it had just… left? 

Lance shook the thought out of his head. He was going to find it, and then he was going to apologise. It would be fine. It _had_ to be fine. 

Lance drummed his fingers against his belt and scanned the woods around him. Where was it? Maybe he should just go stumbling through the forest again and hope for the best. That had worked before. He had about two hours before the darkness started setting in and he’d have to head home. His ankle was almost back to normal but he’d still rather not spend all of that time trekking the forest. Why couldn't it just be here when he most needed it? 

“C’mon!” he screamed into the forest. Apart from a terrified squirrel, nothing happened. Lance clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. Of course the dragon wasn’t here, what in his stupid life had ever gone right when he needed it to? The dragon was the reason he was in such a mess, and now it had disappeared. 

He walked to the boulder by the pond and sank down next to it. He leaned his back on the cold rock and stared at the sky. What was he going to do? He hated lying to his friends, he hated having no idea about the future. He hated that he had made a new friend that everybody else he knew would hate. He hated pretty much everything right then.

The dragon found him there about half an hour later. 

Lance heard heavy footsteps and looked up to see the dragon staring at him from the other side of the clearing. It stopped and blinked a few times when it saw him, but didn’t seem all that surprised by his presence anymore. 

Lance watched tiredly as the dragon made its way to him. It gave his back a curious look, probably looking for muffins, then moved its gaze to Lance’s face. 

Whatever it saw there seemed to take it aback. Lance wasn’t sure what kind of expression he was currently wearing but some of his frustration and desperation probably shone through his terrible efforts to mask them. He didn’t say anything, just waited for the dragon to do something. Leave, probably. 

The dragon did indeed take a step back when it saw the sadness on Lance’s face. But then it took a step forward again. The expression on its face shifted through a thousand different emotions Lance couldn’t decipher, but eventually settled on confusion and uncertainty. 

Watching the dragon flounder, it clearly being unsure of what to do but knowing that _something_ was wrong made Lance feel ever so slightly better. Maybe it didn’t hate him after all, wouldn’t it have left if it did? He decided to offer an olive branch, however withered that branch might be at the moment. 

“Hey,” he mumbled. The dragon’s attention snapped to his face. “I’m having a shitty day.” The dragon blinked at him. _Why?_ Lance thought for a moment before answering. “I wanted to vent to you about it but… Now I kind of just want to bang my head against this rock until I pass out and don’t have to think about it anymore. Think that’s a good idea?” 

The dragon looked alarmed and shook its head vigorously. Lance let out a sad laugh. “Yeah, I figured. Hey, do you ever feel like everything hates you and the world is constantly laughing at your face?” 

It was supposed to be a rhetoric question, one he didn’t expect an answer to, so he was surprised to see the dragon give him a hesitant nod. Oh. Lance pushed himself to properly sitting and leaned forward, toward the dragon. It was looking at somewhere in the forest behind him, obviously trying to avoid his eyes. 

“Really?” Lance breathed out. The dragon glanced at him and shrugged. It suddenly stroke Lance that even though he had never really thought about it, the dragon probably had an entire life of its own. No, not just probably, it _did_ have its own worries and problems and things that made it happy and… friends, maybe? Despite how the Vikings had learned to believe, the dragon was very much its own person. A person with a past and a future and plans and dreams. But why was it hanging out here with Lance, then? 

He leaned his head against the rock and stared at the sky. “I guess everybody feels like that sometimes, then. That’s funny.” He slid his eyes to the dragon’s face. “What do you do to make it go away?” 

He didn’t get an answer to that. Lance sighed and closed his eyes. 

It took about five minutes of silence until he could hear the dragon starting to move around restlessly. Then something prodded his left foot urgently. Lance opened his eyes, only to see the dragon's determined face staring into his eyes from about twenty centimetres away. Lance yelped and jerked his head back. Not a good idea in hindsight, there was a huge rock there. 

“FUCK!” Lance howled when the back of his head collided with the hard and pointy surface. The dragon’s eyes blew wide and scrambled back in alarm. Lance pressed his palms to his eyes and waited for the pain blooming in his skull to subside. What was up with him and constantly getting mutilated nowadays? 

Never had he thought that one day he would use the term ‘sheepish’ to describe a dragon, (dragons were the furthest things from sheep, they ate sheep for breakfast) but when Lance opened his eyes again that was the exact word that popped into his brain. 

The dragon was crouched about three meters from him, looking extremely sorry and kind of panicked at the same time. Lance knew the kind of panic he saw in its eyes, the kind when someone is very seriously considering just bolting away and escaping the situation in any way possible. 

He didn’t want that to happen at all, not when the dragon was finally here. “Ugh,” he muttered. “Ow.” The dragon was staring at the ground now, as if waiting to be yelled at. That didn’t set well with Lance. He was loud but would never shout at somebody looking like that. “Hey. It’s alright.” The dragon peeked up. Lance could see a hint of relief simmering in its eyes alongside the panic and regret. He softened his voice further. “Really. I’m not mad or anything. Promise. Just… maybe next time give me a warning or something. I was kind of surprised.” 

It should have felt weird, him trying to make a dragon (A DRAGON) feel better, but it really didn’t. It felt more natural than anything. Lance felt that by now they had reached at least some level of friendship, and one of his top priorities in life was making sure that his friends weren’t feeling down when he could help it.

“Um,” Lance started. “Did you have something you wanted to say. Or not say, but… You get what I mean.” 

The dragon got an odd look on its face, like it was considering something very hard. Then it shook its head slightly to get rid of the thoughts and nodded at Lance. It took a few steps toward him and turned sideways, all the while looking at him intently. 

It took Lance a few seconds to put the puzzle pieces together. “You want to… You want me to climb on?” He received a curt nod. Lance stood up and hobbled toward the dragon. “Alright, but where are we going?” The dragon hummed, which was not a sufficient answer, but Lance climbed on nonetheless. Whatever this was, it would definitely be better than wallowing in self pity for the rest of the day. 

As soon as Lance was securely sitting on its back, the dragon started to move. Lance yelped as it bounced onto the boulder with one swift leap. He grabbed the dragon’s neck tighter and let out a nervous laugh. “Okay, that was pretty cool but what are you-” His words withered in his throat as the dragon spread its wings open. Oh _shit._ Then, before Lance could say anything to stop it, it jumped again. 

This time though, this time there was nowhere for it to jump _to._ Except up. With a strong stroke of its wings, the dragon took to the air. Lance wrung both his arms and legs tightly around the dragon and pressed his face against its neck. He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed louder than he had probably ever screamed as a sudden gust of wind howled in his ears and violently shook his clothes and hair. 

He could hear two frequent whooshes coming from each side. The dragon’s wings, his mind thought absently, though most of his brain capacity was spent screaming and repeating strings of expletives in his head. He could feel each wingstroke in his entire body, and with every stroke he was getting further and further from the ground… His screaming reached a new pitch, previously unknown to mankind. His heart was going so fast he thought it was about to explode. The dragon could probably feel it too, with how tightly he was pressed against its neck. 

After a few minutes, Lance’s throat had gotten so raw that it was physically impossible for him to continue yelling. He snapped his mouth shut but still didn’t dare to open his eyes. This was bad. This was terrible and horrible and he was going to fall and die.  

Except, things had calmed down now, after he had stopped screaming in terror. The wind had gotten a lot calmer and wasn’t nearly as scathing anymore, and the dragon’s wingstrokes were way less frequent. Even with his eyes closed, Lance got the sense that they weren’t ascending anymore. 

The dragon let out a loud and obvious snort and a tidal wave of amusement washed over Lance. It left him gaping. Mentally, as his eyes were still scrunched shut and his face pressed against the dragon’s softer-than-they-should-be scales. 

It was laughing at him. The stupid lizard had _kidnapped_ him and now it was laughing at him! “I fucking hate you,” Lance mumbled to its neck but his raspy voice was most likely whisked away by the wind before it could reach the dragon’s ears. 

By now, Lance’s heartbeat had calmed down considerably. He inched his head up and peeked his eyes open, just a tiny bit. And _holy shit_ they were high. He clamped his libs around the dragon even tighter, if that was even possible at this point, and let out an involuntary squeak. They were high. They were very high. Far above the treetops, so far that Lance could barely tell one tree from another. Everything on the ground looked abysmally small, so small it didn’t even feel real. 

With a strong stroke of its wings, the dragon rose even higher. Lance yelped as his head was suddenly plunged into heavy, wet mist. It took him a moment to realise what it was, and when he did he let out a soft gasp. The another when he realised, he was in a cloud, he had just _breathed in a cloud._ Without thinking, Lance let go with one and reached out, letting it glide through the mist around him. Huh. So this was what a cloud felt like. He could never have guessed. It was so much wetter and a lot less puffy than he had imagined.  

Lance giggled as the dragon dove out of the cloud. It turned its head around look at him from the corner of its eye, and, even from this angle, Lance could see the totally _smug_ look on its face. He smacked it, then realised he had let go with one hand. He immediately grabbed the dragon’s neck again, causing it to huff and roll its eyes. 

Had Lance’s feet been securely on the ground, he would have made a stupid comment about that. His mental processing was a bit too occupied for that at the moment, though. Lance closed his eyes again and took in a deep breath. He could do this. He was already doing this. He was flying. 

...Holy shit he was flying! 

Lance blinked his eyes open and took in the scenery around him, a lot calmer this time. “Woah,” he breathed out. It was more than just ‘woah’, actually. He could almost see the entire island from here, but even more impressive was the vast, glimmering blue of the ocean that continued as far as he could see in every direction. It seemed far more endless from up here than it had ever done when he was standing on the ground. And there was so much blue everywhere! It was easily the most gorgeous thing Lance had ever seen. 

He turned his eyes to the island below them. “We’re higher than Jotun’s peak,” he wondered out loud, staring at the mountain’s snowy summit below them. He should be freezing up here, Lance realised. But somehow he wasn’t feeling the cold at all. Maybe it was because of the dragon’s warm body below him, maybe his body was pumped so full of adrenaline that he just couldn’t feel the coldness yet. Slowly, he could feel the nervousness disappear. He had already decided he would trust this dragon, so he knew it wouldn't let him fall. 

They were moving at a slow pace now, practically floating in the air. Still, a burst of pure and unfiltered exhilaration bubbled through him. A gust of wind fluttered his hair and he let out a happy whoop and burst into laughter. Up in the sky like this, he felt untouchable. It felt like nothing existed but this exact moment of pure freedom. It was amazing, really. 

Having heard his shout, the dragon was peering at him again. Lance gave it his widest and happiest grin. “I’m flying!” he told it, as if it didn’t already know. The dragon nodded and gave a hesitant grin in return. “Look,” Lance exclaimed and pointed down to the miniature island below them. “It’s so small. I can see everything!” He knew he was rambling, and flying was obviously nothing new to the dragon, but he just couldn’t hold it in. It wasn’t like the dragon seemed to mind anyway, looking more amused than anything by Lance’s happy observations. 

Then, out of nowhere, it got that one look on its face again. The look Lance had learned to assume meant his demise was currently being planned. He was not wrong. Suddenly, the dragon pulled its wings close to its body and, oh, they were nosediving. Lance screamed, half in terror, half in excitement, as they sped down toward the ocean. 

Wind howled, it felt like hundreds of tiny needles were stabbing his skin everywhere, and Lance didn’t care at all. His stomach was jumping and falling all over the place, his eyes were watering but he refused to close them. He grabbed the dragon’s neck tighter and let himself fall into the sensation. Everything else but this exact moment disappeared in the wind behind him. 

He couldn’t recall a time he had felt more alive. 

After what felt like forever, the dragon finally spread its wings and eased into a smooth glide. At some point they had passed the coastline and were now floating above the ocean. They were some twenty meters above it, but the familiarly salty air still made Lance grin. It had been a while since his last proper visit to the sea. 

The dragon was watching him again. Out of nowhere, a sudden rush of warmth toward the creature washed over Lance. It had never had any reason to do anything for him, and yet here was, always listening to his ramblings, hanging out with him, now _taking him flying_ to make him feel better. Because that’s what it was doing, Lance realised. It had noticed he needed something to take his mind off things and proceeded to offer him one of the most exciting experiences in his life like it wasn’t a big deal. It had worked, too. He felt infinitely better. 

Lance smiled at the dragon and moved his eyes to gaze above the ocean before them. They were at the eastern side of the island now, a part of the ocean Lance had never seen before. The shoreline was shattered and rough, with small stone peaks and pillars rising from the sea here and there for a long way before finally giving way to the open sea. They threaded between them easily, sailing through the air so naturally it almost made Lance feel jealous. Had he been born with wings, he’d never do anything but fly. Not if it was always like this. 

With a few strong flaps the dragon rose above the pillars and Lance was surprised to see that plants were growing on top of some of them. Some of the largest even had tiny trees. The sight made Lance feel slightly odd. This was something no Viking could ever see from the ground. Was he the first human to ever see this? 

The dragon shifted their course straight toward a large pillar with a few gnarly spruces growing on it. Lance strengthened the grip of his legs when he felt the dragon preparing to land. The following contact with the grassy ground was softer than he had anticipated. The dragon took a few bouncy leaps to reduce their speed and then flapped its wings closed. It stopped by the edge of the pillar and craned its neck to turn to look at him. 

Lance took that as a signal to get down. When his feet touched the ground he realised he had left his walking cane all the way back in the clearing. Oh well, it wasn’t like he was going to be walking anywhere far here given the small size of the pillar they were on anyway.

 

Lance walked to the edge and peered down to the ocean below. Strong blue waves glittered far beneath, forming foamy crests when colliding with the spikes rising from the sea. He turned around to admire the island on the other side. The sun had started to set, sinking down behind Arus and painting the treetops orange. Lance tried to take it all in. They weren’t all that far from the island, not enough to be able to see the entire eastern side, but still… 

“This is the furthest I’ve ever been from Arus,” he wondered out loud. He glanced at the dragon who was looking at him with curious eyes. “I mean, I think we’re technically still there, but…. you know what I mean.” The dragon shrugged, and Lance realised that maybe it didn’t. Dragons could cross the ocean whenever they wanted to, so they probably didn’t feel bound to one land like humans did. “I guess you have probably left Arus many times, haven’t you?” The dragon nodded. It sat on the ground next to him and curled its tail protectively around it, looking deep in thought. 

Lance hummed. He knew that was to be expected but it still felt weird, the dragon having seen so much more than he had. He wondered, not for the first time in his life, if he would be bound to Arus forever. He loved the island more than anything but the thought of never seeing anything else… He wanted to explore. 

“Hey,” he asked, because he still wanted to know, “why did you leave? Last time in the cave, I mean.” He turned to look at the dragon who seemed to be unsure of what to say. It looked away and shrugged slightly, claws scratching the ground nervously. “Was it because of something I did?” Lance pressed further. He needed to know, not only to make himself feel better but also to make sure he wouldn’t make his friend uncomfortable like that again. 

At his words, the dragon turned back to look at him again. With its eyes blown wide, it vigorously shook its head. It suddenly felt like Lance could breathe a bit easier. “Oh. That’s good. You don’t have to tell me but I’d listen, if you wanted me to.” The dragon shook its head again, this time with less determination. “Alright,” Lance sighed. 

He sat down next to the dragon and absentmindedly gazed over the island in front of them again. They sat in silence, watching the sun sink lower and lower until its light could only reach the tallest of the treetops. It felt like a calm spell had fallen on them, making even Lance, who normally could only sit still for a few minutes, be able to peacefully enjoy the soft ocean breeze. 

“What’s it like, being away from here?” he asked after a while. The dragon shrugged, which Lance had kind of expected to be honest. “Wait. Were you born here on Arus or did you come from somewhere else? You live in here now, right?” 

The dragon made an affirmative noise at the last question and turned its head to peer at the horizon on their right. “South… is that where you came from?” The dragon nodded. Lance hummed in thought. That’s what Coran had said too, wasn’t it? Most dragons came from the South. Lance smiled at the dragon. “So your home is somewhere there, huh? I wonder if–” 

The dragon interrupted his words with an odd noise and a soft shake of its head. It wouldn’t meet his eyes. Lance frowned. “It’s… not? But where is it, then? Your home?” The dragon shook its head again something tiny broke in Lance’s chest. He was pretty sure he already knew when he asked in a small voice: “Do you… not have a home?” 

The dragon didn’t answer that one. 

“Oh.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepositions are killing me and i kind of gave up on them halfway through. Hopefully there wasn't anything too weird because of that :/
> 
> By the way, Keith's obsession with muffins was not planned. It just sort of... happened. But you've got to let him have it, there are not many sugary things to be encountered in the wilderness :D
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	4. Who the heck is this idiot making my life so much more difficult?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have come to realise that my way of moving the story forward is putting Lance in mortal danger. Whoops? Anyhow, during just this past week there have been two occasions when I was supposed to write the word 'drag' but my fingers automatically completed it to 'dragon' so that's where I'm at with this fic...

 

Lance stared at the cage door opening in front of him in increasing terror. He clutched his shield tighter against his chest and fumbled with his new sword, almost dropping it to the ground. This was bad– no, scratch that, this was terrible.

Yesterday, the day after he had snuck home windswept and grinning from ear to ear after the flight he had been taken on, the village of Arus had woken up to two huge signboards in the dining hall. On those boards was information about the new dragon training classes and a detailed schedule for them. The trainees had been divided into six groups and, of course, Lance and his friends were in the group that had the first lesson the following morning. Today.

Lance had considered trying to get out of the training by pulling the injury card but, as he had foregone the brace and the cane already, he was pretty sure his friends would get suspicious if he did that. After all, as far as anyone here knew, he was still hellbent on getting to soak his socks in dragon blood. Besides, Hunk was getting closer and closer to a nervous breakdown by the minute, and Lance wasn’t about to desert his friend in need.

He had doubted they would be doing any actual dragon fighting on the first lesson anyway. This was not the  _actual_ dragon training program after all.

So, Lance had shown up by the dragon ring first thing in the morning, with Hunk, Pidge, and several other young Vikings beside him, wholly expecting a theory lesson. He might even have been looking forward to that, as he was on a quest for all kinds of information about dragons.

It had become clear that it wouldn’t be just theory when Olia, their teacher for the day, had shown up with a humongous warhammer and a devilish grin decorating her face. She had taken in the mismatched group standing in front of her, a miscellaneous assembly of people who seemed excited, those who didn’t care either way, and those who seemed downright terrified. (Hunk was definitely in the last category, but Lance knew his friend would undoubtedly pull himself together if things got too saucy. Hunk was reliable like that.)

Lance wasn’t scared of what was about to happen per se but more worried about all the things he’d have to do in the ring. Facing a dragon wasn’t the problem here, he felt quite comfortable about that, actually, but the idea of having to _fight_ one, all the while pretending to be excited about it… That was going to be less than ideal.

Olia had pushed the heavy iron gates open with a theatrical flourish and ushered them in. She had ordered to line up to listen to her opening spiel. The line had been… less than perfect but hey, they _were_ Vikings.

“Welcome to dragon training, everybody,” she had said and given Lance an exceptionally bright smile which had made his stomach churn uncomfortably. “I know that some of you are eager to see what you’re made of while others,” her gaze had stopped on a bored looking girl at one end of the line, “would rather be doing anything else. Whatever the case, you’re gonna have to suck it up, because I don’t want to hear any complaints, alright?” When nobody had said anything, Olia had given them all a stinky look which had caused a few people, Lance included, to mutter a half-assed “alright” back, which had seemed to please her well enough.

Olia had gone through some basics first, about how they couldn’t expect the dragons to go any easier on them even though they weren’t “proper fighters” and so she wouldn’t either and such. At the end of her spiel, she had asked if anyone had brought their own weapon, at which point Lance had raised his hunting bow. (Pidge still hadn’t made him a new dragon bow.) Olia had snorted at that. “Yeah, no,” she had declared, “You’re not going to fighting dragons with that if you’re under _my_ watch. Get a sword.”

And so, Lance had got a sword. It was a long and heavy thing, something that felt weird in his unused hands but the weight didn’t feel too uncomfortable. He was sure he could get used to it with time but unsure if he wanted to, even if it was just for self-defence. Hunk was armed with a heavy throwing axe, and Pidge had two weird… things. They kind of resembled two iron hooks tied to the ends of a long rope. Lance had no idea what it was or where she had gotten it from but he hadn’t dared to ask. Neither had Olia when she spotted them. It seemed that Pidge’s reputation of being a hard person to deal with preceded her.

After everyone had been more or less armed, Olia had marched to the heavy iron cage door at one side of the ring. “This thing here,” she had said and turned to look at her terrified students, “is a Shovelhelm. Let’s see how you do.” In one smooth motion, she had cranked a lever in the door which immediately began to rise.

That was where Lance was now. Helplessly staring at the widening space under the door and knowing that, sooner rather than later, there was going to be an angry, angry dragon in their midst.

“What’s a Shovelhelm?” Hunk loudly whispered next to him. He looked like he was about to throw up any second. Lance felt a wince of pity for his big friend, it was at least partly for his, Lance’s, sake that Hunk was here in the first place. Lance and Pidge both shrugged at the question but luckily a girl to their right supplied an answer.

“Heavy. Slow. A boulder type.”

Hunk audibly gulped. “Deadly?”

The girl scoffed. “Aren’t they all?”

Lance was about to quip something to that but his moment was stolen by a huge bang coming from the opening cage. Everyone’s attention snapped back to the matter at hand. It was clear that something had hit the door with a lot of force. Something boulder-typey, perhaps.

A millisecond later the door had finally risen enough, and a large dragon clambered out of the cage. People scrambled back as it let out a low growl and shook its body wildly.

“Don’t run away you cowards, go get it!” Olia hollered from the sidelines, not making any difference in anyone’s actions whatsoever.

All the Vikings in the ring were frozen still, staring at the Shovelhelm that was rapidly blinking and taking in its surroundings. There were no lights in the cages, Lance realised. The bright sunlight must have been very disorienting for the dragon who had been in complete darkness for gods knew how long.

He took a moment to assess the dragon. It was no wonder it was classified as a boulder type, the Shovelhelm quite resembled a mossy boulder in nature. In height, it wasn’t much taller than the dragon Lance was familiar with but the overall size… well. Lance was pretty sure it was at least five times heavier. Its physique was stronger overall, honed for strength rather than speed like his dragon was.

“Your job is to get it unconscious or back to its cage, but if you manage to remain alive I’ll count it as a pass on today’s lesson,” Olia yelled and snapped Lance back into the moment. Her voice seemed to provoke the Shovelhelm, as it let out a scream and spread its wings. “Don’t get burned. Don’t get eaten. And don’t kill it, we only have so many to train with. Go!”

Everything was a flurry of movement after that. With a few strong strokes of its wings, the dragon rose to the air, though the metal grid surrounding the ring prevented it from rising too high. It let out a frustrated scream and spat out a surge of fire at an unfortunate target below which it seemed to pick at random.

The target was, of course, none other than Lance McClain. Who else would an angry dragon pick out of the dozen people currently in the ring but him? Lance hesitated a second too long between raising his shield and booking it, which ended up with him awkwardly scrambling back when the dragon fire hit his half-raised shield with a surprising amount of power. Heat rushed up Lance’s arms and he felt a droplet of sweat start to form on his temple. He gritted his teeth and tried to endure the blast, raising his shield to cover himself better.

And oh. Maybe his ankle wasn’t in a top condition after all, judging by the trickle of pain sneaking up Lance’s calf.

He didn’t have time to worry about his injuries, however, as the Shovelhelm was still very much coming for him. Only this time it wasn’t a burst of flames rushing toward him, this time it was a very heavy, boulder-type dragon that didn’t end up being _that_ slow after all.

Lance was saved from becoming a new, extremely flat type of dessert food by Hunk who snatched him from the ground and fled to the other side of the ring with a speed Lance wasn’t aware his friend possessed. They were away from the trajectory of the Shovelhelm now, that was for sure. Though from the bouncy ride and the constant mutter of “Oh my god”s from Hunk, it was hard for Lance to see what happened next.

The Shovelhelm apparently wasn’t too good at changing directions fast so it ended up practically crashing to the ground. Someone, Lance had no idea who, was on it instantly, letting out a shrill war cry. Others followed in the first brave soldier’s footsteps, waving their weapons wildly.

Lance scrambled down from Hunk’s arms as the dragon shouted from pain and lit the ring again with a new burst of flames. The people gathered around it scurried back and somebody yelped, most likely having been burned.

Lance watched in terror as the Shovelhelm rushed toward a boy holding a small axe. The boy dropped into position and raised his weapon, apparently not willing to dodge from the dragon’s way. Lance swore under his breath. Someone, either the boy or the dragon, was going to get hurt.

Lance was equally scared for the both of them.

The boy was saved by a short girl, one of the fletcher's daughters named Moontow, who grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and basically tossed him away from the dragon. The boy went tumbling down with a cloud of sand, ending up face down on the ground. Moontow yelled something at him but Lance couldn’t hear what she was saying.

His heart was beating too fast, and blood was rushing in his ears. He gripped his sword tighter with his sweaty hands. He needed to calm down.

“–should get it back to the cage,” someone was saying next to Lance. Both he and Hunk turned to look at Pidge who was standing next to them, seemingly unperturbed by the chaos raging around them.

“What?” Lance croaked. How were they so calm about this? Or rather, why was he freaking out so much? He had seen dragon training sessions before. Heck, he had even seen dragons get killed before. He should have known to expect all this.

The memory of watching the sunset with his dragon popped into his mind. His eyes slid to the raging Shovelhelm in the ring. Was it… was it the Vikings’ fault the dragon was in that state?

Pidge was snapping their fingers in front of his face. “That’s what Olia said, right? The goal is to get it back to the cage. Or get it unconscious but I don’t think that’s happening. See?” She motioned at the dragon who was now somehow flying again. It was hovering in the air all the while spitting fire everywhere, the Vikings near it doing their best to cover themselves with their shields.

Hunk was wringing his hands together nervously. “That’s a good idea, except. How? I don’t think we can make it go _anywhere_ never mind the cage!”

Pidge grinned. “Oh, I have an idea.” She grabbed her rope-hook-thing and started spinning one of the hooks in a small circle, ready to throw. Hunk took a step back. Lance wisely followed.

They both watched in amazement as Pidge aimed, then let go of the rope. The hook sailed through the air, ending up securely wrapped around the Shovelhelm’s thick tail.

Pidge was looking incredibly proud of themselves after the, Lance admitted it, totally awesome shot. She turned to Hunk and Lance and started gesturing with the rope. “I designed this a while back. It’s supposed to help–”

Now, Lance never got to hear exactly what Pidge’s invention was supposed to help with. Pidge, while an extremely intelligent being, had forgotten one minuscule factor while designing their weapon. That being, the dragon.

While they were talking, the Shovelhelm had noticed the weird device wrapped around its tail. It decided to yank it. It decided to yank it very hard. Pidge, still holding the other end of the rope and comparable to a bag of air in terms of body mass, was pulled from their feet in one swift motion and went flying.

Everybody, even the dragon, stopped in their tracks to gawk in horrendous awe as they soared through the air in a beautiful arch, all the while screaming in terror. Lance could have sworn he heard a distant choir singing from above during their flight.

A millisecond later Pidge smacked to the ground with a concerning thud, having let go of the rope. They didn’t get up.

Hunk beat Lance to them. He pulled Pidge up by their shoulders and shook vigorously. Maybe a bit too vigorously, Lance thought. Fortunately, Pidge was only looking slightly worse for the wear, their nose was bleeding and they were covered in dirt, but mostly okay. They seemed more amazed about their impromptu flying trip than anybody else, though. Their eyes were wide as saucers and their mouth was hanging slightly open.

“Are you okay?” Hunk demanded. Lance picked Pidge’s miraculously unharmed glasses from the ground and plucked them on their face. He was pretty sure his heart had stopped for a moment there, good gods.

Pidge nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’m. Wow. Wow, I just flew. Wow.” Okay, maybe she wasn’t completely fine then.

In their haste to get to Pidge, Hunk and Lance had _also_ forgotten something important in their near vicinity. The same thing as Pidge, to be more specific. The thing that was, indeed, an angry and murderous dragon who now had a deadly-looking iron hook wildly swinging from its tail. Lance watched in horror as the hook nearly decapitated the boy who had tried to fight the Shovelhelm earlier.

Lance had not signed up for this.

Olia was rushing toward them. “Is she okay?” she yelled and motioned to Pidge, ducking to avoid the hook soaring over her head.

Pidge waved their hands as if to say that there was nothing to worry about. It did not have the desired effect, however, as they almost toppled over the instant Hunk let go of their shoulders. “I’m fine– Whoa!”

Lance grabbed them and did his best to stabilize them. He didn’t dare to let go, though.

Olia gritted her teeth and peered at the hook that was dangerously swinging around the ring. By now most of the young Vikings there had opted for taking cover under their shields, shuffling against the edges of the ring. Nobody seemed so keen on trying to fight the dragon anymore.

Olia pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed deeply. “This is exactly why I was against this,” she muttered under her breath. Then she cleared her throat and pointed at Lance. “You. Get her out of here before they pass out. No objections. And you–” she pointed at Hunk who instantly seemed very, very worried, “–are going to help me get this thing back to its cage.

Hunk seemed to be ready to pass out when hearing this, so Lance jumped in. “But why can’t I–”

Olia smacked him. Hard. “No objections, I said. GO!”

Lance gave Hunk a searching glance. His friend bit his lower lip and then gave Lance a determined nod. “Do it. Get Pidge and the others out of here before that hook takes someone’s head off. I’ll–” he gulped– “I’ll help Olia.”

“I think the dragon is coming for us,” Pidge said and peered at something over Lance’s shoulder. Lance turned to look and, yeah, so it was.

He unceremoniously tossed Pidge over his shoulder (and did _not_ almost fall over, he had muscles!) and booted toward the gate.

There were two doors next to each other. First, the big gate with heavy metal bars, big enough to fit a large-ish dragon. There was no way Lance was going to get that one open all by himself. (Pidge was smart but she weighed less than a pillow and was currently probably-concussed, so, no help there.) Besides, it wasn’t like he could just open it and expect the Shovelhead to _not_ take its chance at sudden freedom and escape into the unsuspecting village.

Luckily there was a smaller, human-sized entrance next to the big gate. It was made of metal, as not to be burned, and had a pretty simple and easy to use handle mechanism that had been deemed dragon-proof. Lance adjusted the disgruntled Pidge on his shoulder and went to open the door. While turning the handle he couldn’t help but think that _his_ dragon could have opened the door in two seconds flat. It wasn’t complicated at all!

After finally getting it open, Lance pushed Pidge through the door. Then he turned around to wave at the unlucky dragon trainees hustled together at the other side of the ring. Two or three of them had broken away from the bunch and were now helping Hunk and Olia do… something. Lance didn’t have time to figure it out.

The dragon didn’t react well to a dozen people suddenly rushing across the ring to the door. It spat out another burst of flames, at Lance again what the hell, and twisted around sharply, the hook swinging around in a wide arch.

Later on, Lance would have liked to say that he did something worthy of mentioning but the truth was that he, and pretty much everyone else was left gaping mouth wide as Hunk miraculously grabbed the hook right from the air and _yanked._

The dragon let out a surprised scream as the air suddenly disappeared from under its wings. It plummeted to the ground with a force that made the entire ring vibrate when it hit the ground. Olia was on it in a second, smacking it in the head with her warhammer.

A sudden silence descended on the arena as the Shovelhelm fell unconscious.

Olia was the one to break the spell. She tossed her hammer to the ground and declared loudly, “Hunk gets extra points, Pidges gets a negative hundred points for giving the dragon a _weapon_ and everybody else can do whatever. Class is over, meet me here in three days for another lesson. And _somebody_ get that thing off of its tail, we don’t need another repetition of this fiasco.”

 

***

 

In the end, it turned out that Pidge did indeed have a concussion, coupled with a few sprained fingers. She was too out of it to realise it yet, but Lance was sure there would be hell when she found out she’d have to keep from precise mechanics for a while. Apart from that, she was mostly alright, if not a bit wayward at the moment.

Hunk was having a post-dragon freakout. His mouth was going on an on, repeating the happenings of the training session over and over again until Lance pressed a cup of warm goat milk into his hands. Then he sat silently with a peculiar expression on his face, staring into nothing and occasionally taking a sip from his drink. After his stunt with the dragon, Lance didn’t judge his friend from being a bit out of it. 

Even though Lance himself hadn’t really _done_ anything he still felt surprisingly drained after all that had happened. Turned out a genuine fear of both your and your friends’ deaths did that to you. He decided not to mention the ache in his ankle to anybody, lest he be subjected even more panicking. Hunk would probably break down from stress and start crying if Lance added anything more to the pile.

The three of them were sitting in Hunk’s kitchen, watching in silence as his grandmother peeled carrots for her signature ‘none of y’all died’ cake. Pidge had her face pressed into her arms on the table, suffering from a devilish headache. Lance prodded her every so often to make sure she didn’t fall asleep. The lethargic atmosphere that had fallen over them gave him time to fall into his thoughts.

All things considered, their first training lesson hadn’t been all that bad. No one had gotten seriously hurt, with Pidge’s condition being the worst of the lot. Well, Lance corrected himself in his head, no one human had gotten seriously hurt. The Shovelhelm had gotten smacked in the head so hard it fell unconscious.

Like Olia had said, there weren’t that many dragons in the village to train with. It was surprisingly hard to catch wild dragons instead of killing them, so most of the ones they had had been in the village for a long time. Lance chewed on his lip in thought. Would the dragons rather be killed than be forced to be beaten up for years with no end in sight? He wasn’t sure if he would.

Lance almost knocked over his water cup when he was hit with a realisation. He didn't have to just wonder about it. He could go ask.

 

***

 

He couldn’t resist the temptation. He had laid in bed for a long time unable to fall asleep before giving in to the urge and deciding to do something even he knew to be very, very unwise. Well, to be truthful, there weren’t many decisions he had made lately that could be even remotely described as ‘wise’. This one still might have taken the cake, though.

He had barely spoken to his friends after the training lesson, too caught up in his own thoughts. The more he had thought about the Shovelhelm, about all the dragons trapped in the ring, the more distressed he got. Even after weeks of his mediocre research, he still had no idea if these dragons were as intelligent as the one he had gotten to know so well.  His dragon might have been an exception somehow, but if it wasn’t and they were all like that... That thought didn’t leave him alone. He _had_ to know.

So, it was the middle of the night and he was here. He shouldn’t have been here. He absolutely, one hundred percent shouldn’t have been here. But he just couldn’t keep waiting around for the information to fall into his lap anymore, he had to find out himself. Even if that meant doing something that made him feel like total garbage.

The dragon ring had a different atmosphere after dark than it did during the day. When the sun was up the ring was full of sounds and turmoil, sand flying and weapons clanging against each other and dragonskin. At night it was calm, eerily so. The metal grid surrounding the ring from above was a dark shape against the even darker sky, making Lance feel like entering the ring uninvited was a violation of… something. It sent chills up his spine.

For all its creepy demeanor, the ring had been surprisingly easy to sneak into. Well, he supposed the two guards were on the lookout for dragons, not morally ambiguous, squirrelly teenagers. The one Lance had snuck past had also looked half asleep on her feet, so there was that.

The door leading to the tunnels where the dragons’ cages were in wasn’t locked. Lance, wrapped tightly in his large wool coat, touched the handle and took a deep breath. He had always done his fair share of sneaking and rule breaking, but this was different. None of the past times had been anything but for fun and adventures, whereas this… this was treason. This was breaking everybody’s trust and potentially hurting the village somehow. This could get him into serious trouble if somebody found out. Even more if he'd have to reveal exactly  _why_ he was looking for this information.

Lance turned the handle.

The dragon ring was surrounded by a circular tunnel system going all the way around it. To the inner side of the tunnels, opening directly to the arena, were the dragon cages. The outer tunnels hosted mainly weapons and other related stuff. Although it seemed like this particular hallway Lance entered was currently serving as a leather drying station.

He closed the door behind him and fumbled to light his lantern. The tunnel was pitch black, which he took as a sign that nobody was present. The flame in his lamp flickered to light and cast the hallway in unsteady light. He could only see a few meters ahead before the floor was eaten up by darkness again. Gritting his teeth, Lance began to walk forward.

The tunnels were surprisingly easy to navigate, considering the Arusian style in most things. The doors to the dragons’ cages were even labelled clearly with a blocky font. There were no heavy locks or clasps on these doors so Lance figured there must have been other sets of doors between these ones and the actual dragons. Good, he wouldn't have to hang around in the open hallway while trying to consult a dragon.

Lance’s footsteps echoed in the stony tunnels as he walked, reverberating up the walls and into the ceiling. He brought the lantern a bit closer to his chest, its light illuminating the hard details on the iron doors he passed. ‘ _Deadly Nadder’,  ‘Rumblehorn’_... How many dragons did they even have here? How did he not know? Coldness radiated from the iron doors, the temperature close to zero underground. Lance shivered and pulled his coat tighter around himself. He did not like this place, not one bit.

Lance knew that dragons were social animals and generally lived in groups centered around a nest. (That was one thing his dragon was different in compared to other dragons, at least.) The dragons here were all alone in their cages, and had been for a long time. Lance shuddered. That might have been a form of torture these beings were being subjected to that nobody had even considered. Not that it would make any difference to the Vikings.

Lance wasn’t stupid, so he had chosen to approach the smallest dragon the village had. A terrible terror. Small, but still vicious and fully capable of ripping his throat open if it so wanted. Being tiny, Lance had figured it might also be the quietest, which served his purposes well. Besides, it would be in a cage so there was no danger in this at all. It would be fine. 

When a sign with _‘Terrible terror’_ finally came to view, Lance stopped. He took in a deep breath. It all seemed so scary because he was alone. And it was dark. And cold. And he shouldn’t have been here. But he’d be perfectly safe, so no worries. He would be _fine._

Lance closed his eyes for a moment, collecting his thoughts. Then he pushed the door open.

Absolutely nothing happened.

He peeked into the dark room and brought his lantern up. If he narrowed his eyes, he could just make out thick metallic bars dividing the room in two, and two bright spots at the back of the cage, reflecting his light back at him.

The dragon.

Heart beating wildly, he stepped in and closed the door. A bad move, perhaps, as it would make escaping more difficult, but it calmed him down somewhat. No one had any business entering the dragons’ cages at night, so unless he made a huge ruckus, he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone passing by and spotting him. Only the dragon to worry about now.

He turned to look at it, still unable to make out anything but the two glowing eyes. In the light of his lantern, they seemed yellow but he wasn’t sure whether that was their real color or not. The terror hadn’t moved, observing him from the furthest corner of the cage. Lance released a breath. It hadn't started screaming, at least. That was a good sign.

“Hello there,” Lance whispered in a rusty voice. He received no answer. Did it not understand him or did it just not want to answer him? Could be either, the dragon had no reason to answer him after being imprisoned and beaten by the Vikings. He wouldn’t have been so friendly either had he been in the dragon’s shoes. Or feet, skin, whatever. “My name's Lance.”

The terror blinked but Lance was pretty sure it was just because it naturally needed to blink rather than anything to acknowledge his words. Lance frowned. He needed to make it do something, but he didn't want to distress it in any way. Gods knew it had suffered enough as it was.

Luckily, he had come prepared. Lance pulled out a muffin from his pocket. No reaction. He walked closer to the bars separating him from the cage and broke off a tiny piece from the pastry. “It’s good, I promise. You can have it.”

He tossed the piece into the cage. The dragon’s eyes followed it and Lance hears it sniffing the air guardedly, but it didn’t move any closer to the food. Lance frowned. “No? What about this?” He pulled out a piece of dried mutton.

This got him a reaction. The dragon perked up and Lance saw a glimpse of tongue scenting the air as the dragon stared at the meat in his hand.

Lance took another step closer, bringing himself right to the bars. The terror let out a warning hiss, pressing its body against the back wall. “It’s okay, promise!” Lance tried to reassure it. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

It didn’t seem like the dragon got the idea, as it kept hissing and puffing itself up the best it could. Lance sighed and sat himself down, a considerable distance away from the bars. Far enough to be out of lunge distance. “Answer me and I’ll give you this meat. Can you understand me?”

He spent about an hour like that. While the terror calmed down after a while, it showed no signs of the intelligence Lance had gotten used to with his dragon in the forest. After about half an hour of coaxing, the dragon seemed to come to the conclusion that Lance wasn’t going to give it the mutton, at which point it promptly started ignoring him and went to sleep.

Lance was nothing but persistent, however, so he kept at it until he started yawning himself. At that point he was pretty sure that staying there longer wouldn’t yield any answers so he decided it was time to call it quits. He tossed the mutton into the cage to make up for the trouble and also help it with the malnourishment the terror was probably battling with.

The seemingly asleep tiny dragon descended on the meat before it even hit the ground, devouring it in seconds. Lance frowned. Just how little food did these dragons get to be this hungry? He glanced at the uneaten piece of muffin innocently laying on the cage floor and realised he had no way of getting it out of there. It was pretty clear the dragon wasn’t going to eat it, so the next people entering the room would have to try to figure out how a piece of pastry had made it down there. Oh well, it wasn’t like there was any way to connect it to him, it was a regular muffin from the kitchens.

That was another difference between his dragon and this one. The terrible terror didn’t seem at all interested in eating sweets, even though it was obviously hungry. His dragon devoured muffins at alarming speeds. Weird. He couldn’t really think any explanation for that other than that his dragon just really liked sugar. That thought brought a smile to his face, however misplaced it felt in this dark place.

Apart from that tiny detail, this experiment had been a bust. This dragon didn’t seem to be as smart as the other one, but that could have been for multiple reasons. Maybe it was because this was a different type of dragon. It might have been that terrible terrors weren’t as smart as whatever his dragon was. Maybe it was intelligent but just didn’t show it to him. Or maybe the prolonged captivity had somehow driven the terror mad and made it lose it cognitive skills. The last thought sent something cold snaking down Lance’s stomach. He hoped it wasn’t that.

Lance stood up and let his eyes linger on the dragon one last time. He looked around the cell, empty and cold. A horrible place to live in.

Lance’s eyes stopped on the door of the cell, the door leading to the arena. If he opened that one, and then the big door above ground the terror would be free. He _could_ do it if he just… There was no way that would go unnoticed by the village. They would immediately know someone had done it. Someone human.

Gritting his teeth, Lance walked back home, heart cold and guilt pressing heavily in his stomach. He wasn’t brave enough to do something so blatantly against the Vikings, not ready or willing to raise his hand against the people he cared for and loved. The dragon remained in its cell.

Later, when he was lying in his bed waiting to fall asleep, Lance was hit with a realisation. While the terror hadn’t seemed to be capable of understanding him, it still hadn’t acted aggressively toward him until it had felt threatened. And when it had figured out he wasn’t a threat it had gone right back to chilling. Once again, Lance had seen none of the bloodthirsty beast dragons had always claimed to be.

He wasn’t sure what to think of that.

 

***

 

Armed with a piece of carrot cake, Lance embarked into the forest once more. It had been a quiet day in the village, nothing of interest happening. There had also been nothing for him to do so, after uselessly meandering up and down the village street for gods knew how long, he decided to just go.

He wanted to thank the dragon for making him feel better last time, and also ask some questions about dragons in general. It was becoming painfully clear that nobody in the village, the dragons included, had the answers he was looking for, so he had decided to go to the most trustworthy willing source he could think of. The dragon. He was hoping that they were on good enough terms by now that it would actually be willing to answer his questions.

The day was nice, and Lance had some pent-up energy he needed to release after the dragon training fiasco, so he had decided to take a longer, more scenic route to the dragon’s clearing. This one looped closer to the shoreline and had sparser vegetation. Well, there were raspberry bushes everywhere, already red with berries this close to autumn.

The forest was calm around him as he walked. Blackbirds were scurrying amongst the underbrush, rustling in the patches of long grass and lazily hopping away when he neared them. He even saw two squirrels having a serious disagreement, both of them screeching and speeding after one another through the canopy. Lance smiled as he watched them go.

He didn’t hurry on his way, happy to finally be able to walk normally without his ankle stinging. He stopped often to pick raspberries whenever he saw a particularly abundant bush.

He was crouched down doing just that when he realised how silent the forest had suddenly gotten. There were no signs of squirrels anymore and even the birds had stopped singing. A cold shiver danced across the back of his neck.

A sudden snatch of a twig under something heavy had him spinning around. A pair of slitted green eyes widened about four meters away from him. A pair of green eyes belonging to a large blue dragon, with a wingspan of at least three meters. Lance couldn’t identify the species, but he could tell that this one in particular wasn’t looking too good.

Several scars, freshly healed, ran over its muzzle. The scales on its neck were hanging oddly, as if its skin was a size or two too large there. And most importantly, it had a hazy, haunted look in its eyes. Eyes, which were hungrily zeroed in on him.

Lance’s knees suddenly felt wobbly. He was _not_ prepared for this. What was he supposed to do? Gingerly, he extended an arm toward the dragon in front of him and managed a smile. Maybe he could calm the dragon down. “Hey there. It’s okay, I’m–”

The dragon lunged. Lance scrambled back, instinctively raising his arms to protect his face. There was no space for him to retreat to so he ended up falling backwards into the raspberry bush, wincing as the spiky branches dug into his skin.

The dragon didn’t seem to mind the hindrance, as it dove straight for him, talons extended. Lance yelped when it landed on him, a good portion of its weight pressing down on his chest and stomach. It wasn’t enough to crush him but it did make it impossible to draw in normal breaths.

Lance could feel his pulse skyrocketing, as the dragon sniffed him. Was it going to _eat_ him?

Lance tried to push the dragon’s large body away but he knew there was no way it would work. Even though it seemed bony and malnourished, the dragon was far stronger and bigger than him. He was effectively trapped.

Panic swelled up in Lance’s chest. He aimed a swift kick to the dragon’s stomach and tried to wiggle out of its grasp. The dragon hissed when the kick landed, breathing out a puff of air at Lance’s face. He gagged when the stench of rotting meat and fish entered his nose.

The dragon shifted its weight on top of him, its front legs settling on Lance’s shoulders. It felt as if Lance’s heart stopped when he realised what it was about to do. He screamed out an unintelligible plea for help when the dragon spread its wings above him and jumped, dragging him up with it.

Lance watched in terror as the ground got further and further away. The dragon adjusted its hold on him and he yelped when he heard cloth ripping. It was currently carrying him by his tunic, if the fabric would give in to the stress it was under and rip completely…

Lance clung to the dragon’s leg when as it rose higher and adjusted its direction toward the ocean. Where was it taking him?

A mental image of a cave, full and full of hungry dragons of different types flashed in his mind. The nest. It seemed like he was going to be the one to find the nest. Too bad he wouldn’t be making it back to tell the village its whereabouts. The dragon was flying so high by now that he wouldn't survive even if he somehow managed to make it let go of him. Which would be a better way to go, falling or being ripped to shreds by a flock of angry dragons?

Lance pressed his eyes closed and started a familiar prayer his grandmother had taught him years and years ago. _I pray to thee, god of the sea, to–_

He was cut off by a loud, piercing scream being carried across the ocean. Lance snapped his eyes open and quickly found the source of said scream.

A tiny, red-and-black blur was speeding toward them from behind, gaining on them fast. Lance’s jaw dropped. He was pretty sure he had never seen anything move so fast. It was as if the blur was breaking the laws of speed itself, zipping through the air like there was nothing holding it back. No gravity. No wind resistance. Nothing. Lance stared at it in wonder.

The dragon carrying him answered with its own rumbling war cry and twisted around to face the opposer. It narrowly avoided a crackling fireball, the incredible heat from it tingling against Lance’s skin. Lance gulped.

He hissed when the dragon’s grip tightened around his shoulders, its claws finally digging through the fabric and piercing his flesh. He dangled helplessly while the dragon carrying him assessed its opponent, who was quickly closing distance.

Had Lance not known otherwise, the new dragon’s seething gaze would have made him believe that this was a challenge for prey. However, when his eyes met the familiar yellow ones, a wave of relief washed over him. Even though he was up here, gods knew how far above the ocean, in the danger of being dropped to his death any moment, even though his dragon was much smaller than the dragon carrying him, he felt safe now. Somehow, his dragon had found him once again.

Lance’s tunic ripped further when the dragon shifted. Well, _safer_ than before, at least.

The blue dragon didn’t seem like it was willing to give up its prey just yet, though. It released a low, threatening grumble and spat out a burst of flames, which the other dodged easily.

The smaller dragon twisted in the air and lunged. It brandished its claws and tore a deep gash into the other’s side. Lance winced as a shower of rain droplets washed over him. 

He wanted to help somehow but couldn't figure out how. What could he do from down here?

With its claws occupied, the dragon carrying him had no option but to keep dodging the other’s attacks. Its grip kept tightening on Lance’s shoulders, making him grit his teeth. He was pretty sure he was bleeding by now.

Lance tried to swing his legs up to kick the dragon in the neck, but gravity was against him. If only he could get up to its back somehow…

Lance yelped when the blue dragon suddenly twisted around, apparently trying to bite the small one. He swung his body violently to the left, trying to get the dragon to lose its balance. It worked, somewhat, and the dragon had to slow down to stabilise itself. The red-and-black dragon took its change and descended on the blue one's back, claws snapping against the scales.

Lance yelped when the blue dragon lurched downward, not strong enough to carry the weight of another dragon on its back. It let out a long hiss and, and–

The claws around Lance’s shoulders disappeared. He felt a bizarre sensation of weightlessness, and then he was plunging toward the sea.

 _“Lance!”_ someone yelled, or maybe it was just in his head. The wind howled in his ears as he spun in the air recklessly. Everything around him was a blur of sickening motion, making his head feel like it was going to explode.

He finally stabilized after what felt like hours, though in reality it was probably only a few seconds if even that. He twisted to look up above him, where the two dragons were still battling, claws and teeth shining bright red in the sunlight.

The smaller of the dragons, his dragon, scrambled free of the other one’s hold and ripped a long gash through its wing. The blue dragon went spinning through the air, no longer able to control the direction of its flight.

Lance let out a sigh of relief, which disappeared into the wind around him. At least he knew now that his dragon would be fine.

He glanced down. The sea was getting closer and closer to him, the dark blue and green filling the entirety of his field of vision. He knew that hitting it after falling from the height he had would feel much like hitting a wall of stone. There was no way he’d survive.

The dragon above him let out a vicious snarl and Lance looked back up. A red-and-black arrow was rushing toward him, stretching its wings to their limits in its attempt to catch up.

 _“Spread your arms, idiot!”_ a voice yelled in Lance’s head. He scoffed. There was no way his bony arms would do anything in terms of wind resistance to slow down his fall at all. Nevertheless, he complied with the weird voice his consciousness was taking in his last moments.

Falling with his arms spread open, back toward the sky, Lance couldn’t see the dragon anymore. A pity, really, it was a beautiful sight to behold. He wasn’t sure whether it was because it was the only one he had seen flying freely with nothing to bind it to the ground or if it was because of this one was simply more graceful than the others, but seeing a dragon in the air had never made Lance feel so breathless as this one did.

He licked his wind-chapped lips and could already taste the sea salt collecting on them. This was it, then. All those years loving the ocean and in the end it was going to be the one to end his–

A sudden grip around his waist yanked his fall to a stop and all air rushed out of his lungs with a bang. It felt like his spine was hit with a sledgehammer, pain radiating all over his body.

Eyes wide as saucers, Lance looked up. The dragon was visibly panting above him, all four sets of claws securely wrapped around his waist. The two of them shared an incredulous stare, both of them amazed that that had worked and neither of them was currently being dead. Lance wheezed and took in huge gulps of air to calm down his erratically beating heart.

Holy shit, that had just happened. He had almost died, and for real this time. Someday his luck was going to run out if things like this kept happening. Lance glanced back at the ocean, not all that far below them. Another second more and... Holy gods.

Lance hung from the dragon’s claws limply, his entire body trembling like an aspen leaf in a hurricane. It felt like he had been run over with a wagon multiple times in a row and then tossed off a cliff. He was shivering so bad his teeth clacked together painfully.

The dragon, seemingly noticing his distress, flapped its wings to speed up but immediately winced from pain. It breathed out a long hiss and set their course toward the cliffy side of Arus, settling into a bumpy glide. The winds were on their side at least, so it didn't have to do too much work.

On their way back Lance concentrated solely on breathing. He counted the breaths in his head like Hunk had taught him, trying to calm himself down. He was fine. He was fine. He wasn't dead. He was fine.

Lance wasn’t sure how long it took them to reach land. He might have passed out for a moment at some point. His lungs still weren’t working properly, every breath feeling like he got in only half the amount of air he normally did. When they reached a large enough ledge in the cliffside, the dragon unceremoniously dropped him down and practically fell down next to him, releasing a lungful of air as it hit the ground.

They laid there for a while, both of them panting heavily and their limbs sticking out in every direction. One of the dragon’s wings had settled on covering half of Lance’s body but he was too worn out to move it. It was kind of nice, actually, like a pre-warmed blanket, just for him. Gods, he wanted sleep.

Although Lance had been the one to do practically nothing that was physically taxing, the dragon was the one who got up first. And it did so with passion.

Lance gulped when the dragon practically launched to its feet after a few minutes and crouched over him with the most furious expression on its face. Lance instinctively pressed himself flatter on the ground when the dragon snarled right in front of his face.

 _“What the actual FUCK were you THINKING!? How do you get yourself captured by a dragon on the island with the LEAST AMOUNT OF DRAGONS THERE IS? How are you even still alive I swear to the–”_ The voice in Lance’s head abruptly stopped when his jaw fell open in shock, leaving him and the dragon gaping at each other in silence.

Lance’s mind was about to short circuit. The voice. The voice in his head… He wasn’t imagining that, was he? It was in his head but it wasn’t made up by his imagination. The dragon had obviously heard– felt– it too. Not just heard, _it_ was the one who...

Lance pinched himself. Nothing happened.

Eyes so wide they felt about roll from his head, Lance scrambled back on the ledge, almost falling right off the cliff again. “YOU CAN TALK!?” What the hell, what the hell? What the hell was going on? What the hell was up with today?

The dragon was frozen in front of him, its eyes blown wide and nostrils flared. It was well on its way to panic mode, claws digging tighter and tighter to the soft stone under its feet. Ever so slowly, it met Lance’s charging eyes.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected to see, but the pure terror he saw in the dragon’s eyes was not something he was prepared for.

The dragon took one unsteady step back. Then another, and Lance lunged. He wrapped his arms tightly around the dragon’s neck preventing it from moving any further unless it wanted to drag him with it. “Nope, you’re not going anywhere this time!” he proclaimed and dug his heels to the ground the best he could.

The dragon startled when Lance’s arms wrapped around it but stopped moving. Its breath hitched oddly, and Lance stepped back, positive that it wasn’t about to run away. That was progress, at least. Gingerly, Lance raised his eyes to meet the dragon’s wary gaze again. He managed a lopsided grin.

“Honestly, my brain is kind of running overtime right now, what with the being hauled into the sky to be eaten and then falling from bajillion meters in the air, so. I think I might be in shock or something. I don’t think my brain can, like, physically produce the emotion of being surprised right now, which is good because it would probably just _imploded_ otherwise.” He stopped to draw in a raspy breath, all that yelling before had not been good for his vocal chords.

The dragon still hadn’t moved a muscle after being released from Lance’s hold but at least it didn’t like literal death was gnawing on its tail anymore. Lance plopped down on the ground in front of it and scratched the back of his head. He would just... go with this. For now at least. Holy crap, was this a dream somehow? “So. You can talk now. Or mind-talk or whatever. Color me impressed.” The dragon didn’t move. Lance dug his fingers into a patch of dry grass and pulled at it absently. “Please say something so I know I’m not losing it. It was you who just talked to me, right?” Yes or no questions were a familiar, safe territory for them both. Except nothing about this situation was even vaguely familiar.

The dragon blinked several times in rapid succession as if trying to wake itself from a trance. Slowly, it twitched its nose, then nodded.

Lance released a huge breath. “Oh thank the gods. Not exactly the type of answer I was hoping for but good enough. Holy shit. Hooly shit. You can talk. Actual words talk. Fuck me.”

The dragon flinched back and produced an odd noise, looking utterly scandalised by Lance’s words. It gave him such a bewildered look that Lance couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “It’s an expression. Oh my gods your face!” It felt like all the stress he was still holding in bubbled out with his laughs. He was able to relax his shoulders, only now aware of how much tension he had been holding in his body.

Lance took a moment to just breathe, then looked at the dragon who was leaning forward, still looking hopelessly confused. Lance giggled and poked its nose. “Talk again.” He still was only about fifty percent sure any of this was happening. He needed more confirmation.

The dragon narrowed its eyes and pulled back its head so that it was no longer at poke distance. A low grumble reverberated from its throat.

Lance groaned. “C’mooon! Why not? I wanna hear it!” He did. He really did. 

The dragon shook its head and breathed out a puff of smoke right into Lance’s face, causing him to have a coughing fit when he accidentally breathed some in. “Hey!” he wheezed, trying to dispel the smoke by rapidly waving his arms. (Didn’t work.) “Pleeeeease? I can do this all day long, by the way. Please say something. Anything?” Puppy eyes it was again. 

The dragon must have had a heart of stone to be able to smack his cute-ass face with its tail, however light that smacked ended up being. It seemed a lot more relaxed now, Lance noted with satisfaction. That didn’t mean it was going to be let out easy, however. Lance growled and pushed the tail away. “I’ll make you talk yet, you absolute heathen!”

He lunged to his feet and pounced toward the dragon. It tried to smack at him with one of its front paws but, being the slippery eel he was, Lance managed to dodge. Lance wrung his arms around it the best he could, one around the neck and the other wrapping around its torso under the still raised paw. The dragon had to flop down on its side to avoid squishing him, and Lance went down with it with an embarrassing yelp.

He ended up scrambled on top of the dragon’s head and neck, two of the dragon’s claws uncomfortably digging into his side. He pulled himself up and victoriously pressed his palm on the ground on both sides of the dragon’s head, panting but grinning wide.

“Ha! You fell into my masterfully created trap! You can be released if, and only if, you ask me very nicely.” Or it could just smack him away like an insect, of course. But that would be just rude.

The dragon gave him a murderous glare, though Lance was pretty sure it was fake. _“No.”_

Lance gaped down at the dragon’s face for a second, then jumped to his knees and pumped the air with both fists. “YES!”

Realising its mistake, the dragon rolled over and effectively pressed Lance to the ground with a heavy paw on his chest. Lance let a satisfied grin take over his face when the dragon peered down at him.

“Got you. Well, technically you’ve got me, as I’m currently trapped under your foot. But mentally, I got you and you know it. You talked.” He stuck out his tongue and waggled his eyebrows.

Not getting an answer, apart from an exasperated huff, Lance started to wiggle in the dragon’s hold. He did his best to shimmy to the left with questionable success. Meaning, he didn’t move an inch. He tried to sit up but the dragon pressed him down immediately, giving him a stupid, self-satisfied look. Lance sighed and banged his head on the ground a few times.

“Duuuude. You’ve got to let me up at _some_ point.”

The dragon grinned and Lance became very familiar with its razor-sharp canines glinting about twenty centimetres from his face. _“Do I?”_

The words suddenly echoing in his mind made Lance jump. He hadn’t expected the dragon to speak again. He frowned. “Umm, yes? What else are you gonna do, sit here on top of me for the rest of eternity?”

The dragon gave him an expression that could only be described as an eyebrow raise. _“I could always eat you or something. Like that starving Hackatoo was going to do. You know, before I saved your butt. Again.”_

Though the dragon’s voice was only present in Lance’s head, it still had a very distinct voice when it talked. It was low, and a little dry. Male, probably, but who knew, especially with dragons. Lance didn’t have time to ponder about any of that, though, because the dragon was being a total smartass and _that_ wouldn’t do.

(He was pretty sure he was supposed to be more shocked about this TALKING thing but… He’d probably freak out about it later when he had had time to process. Now he was inclined to just… go with it. And get the dragon to talk as much as possible, of course. He wanted to hear it speak more.)

(And the best way to get the dragon to react to anything, he had learned by now, was to be as annoying as physically possible. He was in luck, that was Lance's speciality.)

“Saved me? When? Nope, don’t remember. Didn’t happen.”

The dragon recoiled in surprise and gave Lance an incredulous stare. _“What do you mean you don’t remember? It literally just happened!”_

Finally free of the dragon’s hold, Lance sat up and stretched his arms widely. “Whaat? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Anyhow, what’s up?” The dragon’s expression was so priceless Lance almost lost it again. Who knew a lizard face could be so expressive.

“Soo,” Lance drawled, “where the heck even are we?” They were sitting on a smallish ledge extending from the cliffside, surrounded by smooth vertical stone on every side. There was no way Lance was going to be able to climb out of here himself. He was a good climber in general but not ‘scaling a ten meter high, slippery wall with no equipment and a confused ankle’ good.

He crawled to the ledge’s edge and peeked down. Sea, rocks raising from the sea, more sea. Yup, not getting down from here either. Luckily he had other means to get to stable ground. If the other means were willing to drag his ass there, of course.

He turned back to look at the dragon who was carefully stretching its wings. All that speedflying must have done a number on them, huh. Lance winced. That was mostly his fault, wasn’t it? He’d have to come up with something to make it up to the dragon later. But now... “Sooo,” he started. The dragon narrowed its eyes at him. “You, um, wanna help me get out of here at some point?”

The dragon hummed in thought. _“Dunno. I’ll have to think about that.”_ Apparently, it had decided that talking got him was okay. That was good, except was it really necessary to be so _rude_ _?_

Lance gasped in shock and pressed a hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t leave me here!”

The dragon puffed a whiff of smoke at him, which he impatiently swatted away. It yawned and settled down on the stone floor. _“I’m going to take a nap now,”_ it announced, ignoring Lance completely.

Lance pressed his lips into a pout as the dragon closed its eyes. It curled its tail around its body and dug its nose into it. “Did you just fall asleep in a sunbeam like a cat?” Lance whisper-yelled at it. “Why are you even sleeping right now, can’t you go do that somewhere else? Hey.”

The dragon didn’t answer him but there was no way it had fallen asleep this quickly. “Hey. answer me. Dragon! Wait, do you have a name? Smokey? Scales? Mr Grumpyface McMuffin?”

Mr Grumpyface McMuffin let out both a physical and a mental groan at the same time, which Lance counted as a double success. _"_ _What part of taking a nap do you not understand?”_ it growled.

“The part where you expect me to sit here and wait, obviously.” Lance rolled his eyes, which went unnoticed, as the dragon still had its eyes closed. “I assure you, if you get me out of here your nap will be much more pleasant.”

A long sigh. Then, _“...it’s Keith.”_

Lance perked up. “What? What’s Keith?”

The dragon opened one eye and gave Lance an unnecessarily judgemental stare. _“My name, idiot.”_

Lance stared back, his mouth hanging open.  _What?_ “But. That’s like. A human name?”

_“...okay.”_

Lance scooted toward it. “Don’t you okay me. Why do you have a human name?”

The dragon didn’t look at him. _“Well it’s not like I am the one who picked it, is it?”_ it nearly snapped, and Lance reeled back.

That was not a sufficient amount of information but it was obvious that this was a sensitive topic and the dragon– no, it was Keith– didn’t want to tell him about it.

Lance hummed. “Good point. Um. That’s a dude name. Are you a dude dragon? Wait, can dragon’s even be dudes?”

That earned him an expressive eye roll. _“Why do you always say everything so weird? Yes, I’m a guy or whatever.”_

“Cool.” Keith. The dragon was called Keith and it– he was a guy. Alright. Lance could roll with this with no problem whatsoever. Except none of this made any sense. “Now can you please tell me why you can talk and how nobody knows about this? Because I’m kind of losing my mind.”

The dragon– Keith, this was going to take some getting used to– scrunched its nose in distaste. _“What are you asking, exactly?”_

Just _how_ was that unclear? “Why can you speak?” Lance repeated slowly, emphasising every word. Keith gave him the stink-eye.

_“I don’t know. Why can you?”_

Lance wanted to bang his head against a wall. Was Keith being difficult on purpose or were there some serious communication differences between humans and dragons? He breathed in a long sigh. Maybe he needed to take a different approach to get any information from Keith. He knew he could handle yes or no questions, maybe Lance could stick to those. “Can all dragons talk? Mind-talk, I mean. That’s the official term for it now, by the way.”

_“No. And that sounds stupid.”_

“Well, your face is stupid.” Good one, Lance. “Why can _you_ talk if other dragons can?”

Keith narrowed his eyes at Lance and turned away. _“None of your business.”_

“What? Why? Why can’t you just tell me?” Lance grit his teeth together. Turned out he was not very good at asking yes or no questions. Ugh.

 _“Because.”_ Good grief, this was like pulling teeth.

“Because what? Dude?”

_“Drop it, Lance.”_

Okay, Lance probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the dra– Keith knew his name. He had probably mentioned it at some point during their hangouts. It was kind of unfair, though, that Keith had known his name for ages and Lance was only learning the dragon’s name now. But hearing Keith drop in Lance’s name so naturally just… it was weird, but Lance liked it.

“Geez,” Lance muttered and shook his head in defeat. “Fine, I give up. But you’re being a butt.”

Keith scoffed. _“Are you literally five years old?”_

“Shut up, lizard face.”

 _“Good one,”_ Keith snickered, and Lance tossed a handful of sand at his face. Turned out his dragon was a total jerk. Who could have guessed?

There was a lull in their conversation (if what they had been doing before could even be classified as that), and Lance gave himself a moment to regroup his thoughts.

So. His dragon indeed _was_ different from the others, though he still had no idea why. Somehow, Lance had managed to find and befriend a dragon who was as smart as any human and could _speak_ . Lance bit his cheek nervously. They _were_ still friends, right? Or did this somehow change that?

Lance glanced at Keith and found the dragon already looking at him with pensive eyes. “Keith,” Lance said, tasting the word slowly in his mouth. The dragon’s eyes blew a fraction wider. “I kind of like it, actually. Your name.” He offered Keith a lopsided smile which the dragon answered to with a weak one of his own. He was nervous too, Lance saw.

Yeah, they were still going to be friends, he’d make sure of that if Keith decided to try to run away. This wouldn’t change their dynamic all that much, now the difference was that Keith was actually going to be talking to him instead of giving him an endless supply of scoffs and eye rolls.

“Want some carrot cake?” Lance asked and started patting his pockets. “It’s has suffered some after that, um, getting captured by a dragon and falling from the sky thing but it should still taste good. Hunk’s grandma made it, so you know it’s quality. It’s called ‘none of y’all died’ cake. It’s good.”

Keith perked up at the word ‘cake’, and Lance had to suppress a smile. This guy sure liked his sweets, didn’t he? He unwrapped the battered cake and offered it to Keith.

Keith gave him a weird look. Lance blinked. “What?”

_“I’m not eating from your hand.”_

Lance rolled his eyes and set the cake on the ground. “There. Your status as a mighty sky beast is not damaged. All the mightiest eat from the floor, I hear.”

 _“Shut up,”_ Keith growled but the power of the statement was undermined by him stuffing his mouth with cake. _“What was the occasion?”_

Lance scratched his cheek absentmindedly. “What?”

_“You said, ‘None of y’all died’. Died from what?”_

Oh. Ohhh. He hadn’t mentioned the dragon training to Keith yet, had he? Would he be mad if Lance told him? Disgusted? Surely Keith knew what Vikings thought of dragons, so it would be fine… And Lance _had_ just seen Keith ripping one dragon’s wing to pieces, so.

“Uh. Well. You know that Vikings don’t exactly… like dragons, right?”

Keith snorted. _“An understatement. One even shot me recently.”_

Lance got very worried for a moment before he realised Keith was talking about him. Then he felt both guilty and glad at the same time since Keith mentioning it so offhandedly probably meant he didn’t hold a grudge or anything. “...Right. Well, our chief thinks there is a dragon nest nearby so she’s making everybody take these, um, dragon fighting classes?” The last part came out as a question for some reason.

Keith hummed thoughtfully, which sucked as it gave Lance no clue what he was thinking. “So, our, I mean me, Pidge, and Hunk’s, first lesson was a few days ago. We almost died but didn’t so Hunk grandma baked us the cake. Pidge got a concussion and everything. It was rough”

_“What happened to them?”_

Lance was surprised how chill Keith was being with this. The dragon was still an enigma to him, but he decided to just roll with it for the moment. Thinking back to it, the training lesson _had_ been kind of epic, it was definitely worth a dramatic reenacting by him.

Lance lapsed into the story, including as many extravagant hand gestures as possible to make it more interesting. Keith kept letting out little snorts at the funny parts, and a burst of mental laughter when Lance reached the part with Pidge going flying. Lance kept grinning harder and harder each time Keith made a noise. This talking thing was definitely a plus if it meant getting reactions like this.

In the end, Keith ended up flying him home. Both of them were battered and tired at that point, Keith yawning constantly. The dragon had made Lance tell him how he had ended up kidnapped by another dragon in every single detail, and then called him an idiot several times in a row. Seeing Keith so worried about him made Lance stupidly happy, so happy that he couldn’t stop smiling even when he traipsed into the village several hours after his departure.

Sleep came to him easily that night. His heart was lighter than it had been in a long time and he felt so excited after everything that had just happened. He really had a new friend now. A new good friend. Keith.

He could worry about what it all meant tomorrow, right now he just wanted to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He speaks!! Actually Keith was supposed to speak at the end of the first chapter but I took the longer road accidentally. Also, this chapter marks the moment I have to say goodbye to the pronoun 'it' and welcome the painful world of two 'he's. At least they both have a name now so there's that.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	5. Who the heck is this idiot, pushing and pulling?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to get this out at the end of July but thenn i didn't. But it's here now! I had some trouble with this chapter but it's not getting better however much i try to edit so here we go. 
> 
> I'll be done with the first part of my finals the day after tomorrow so I should have more time to write in the next few months. And then it'll be finals again after christmas...
> 
> By the way, did someone recommend this fic somewhere or something? I've been getting so many kudos and comments in the last couple of weeks. They definitely helped me get this done, so thank you everyone <3
> 
> But anyhow, happy reading!

 

“Where are we going?”

_“I’m gonna show you something.”_

“You’ve shown me like a hundred things already.”

_“And you’ve liked every one of them.  Besides, this is even cooler. You’ll like it.”_

“Cooler than the cave with the waterfall in it? I don’t think so.”

_“Why are you so obsessed with the cave with the waterfall, Lance? That was over a week ago.”  
_

“Because it was a waterfall, Keith, and it was in a cave! There’s plenty to be obsessed about in that!”

Keith snorted and Lance leaned back, grinning. He was lying on Keith’s back, legs dangling over Keith’s shoulders to keep him balanced. It was surprisingly comfortable of a position, Keith’s wing strokes slowly swaying him up and down. Lance was pretty sure he could fall asleep like this.

After Lance had expressed his love of flying, Keith had been quick to turn their hangout sessions into sightseeing tours where he showed Lance all the cool places he had found while exploring the island. And he had apparently found a lot of cool places. Flying and adventuring seemed to be Keith’s favorite past times, and Lance could understand why. Probably not coincidentally, he was also very good at both of those things. And, lucky for him, Lance was there to reap the benefits.

Lance loved it. He loved the flying, he loved seeing sides of Arus that he never could have imagined existing. But most of all, he loved seeing Keith’s enthusiasm when he got to show his discoveries to Lance. It had taken a few conversations to get Keith to open up but when it happened… The dragon boy would geek about his interests so animatedly just thinking about it made Lance smile.

Well, it made him smile most of the time. It had become obvious to him that Keith was just… lonely. The way he perked up when Lance asked questions about flying or a cool rock formation he had found… Lance was pretty sure Keith hadn’t had the chance to show these things to anyone before. Or even to talk to anyone in a long time.

Keith still refused to talk about his past or any personal details too intimate, or even tell Lance what was up with the whole ‘mind talking’ thing. Lance knew Keith had been living on Arus for several years at least, and he had a feeling Keith had been mostly alone during that time.

Keith would absolutely deny it, but Lance knew that the dragon desperately needed a friend. Someone to talk to. And, luckily for Lance, he had been in the right place in the right time to be able to do just that. And, truthfully, Lance felt like he had needed someone to talk to as well. Someone who was removed from his regular life and didn’t have any expectations for him. Also, being regularly treated to flying and adventuring and a very excited dragon boy rambling about caves was something he had already come to cherish even though this had only been going on for about two weeks now.

Two weeks during which Lance had found himself escaping the village and the dragon training lessons more and more often.

Lance let his eyes wander over the forest passing below. This was by far the furthest north Keith had taken him, and he was curious to see where they’d end up. “How far are we going? My butt is starting to get sore.”

Lance could  _feel_ the eyeroll coming from Keith, even though he couldn’t see the dragon’s face. _“Just fifteen more minutes. Stop complaining. You’re going to like this, so be patient.”_

Lance couldn’t recall a time when Keith had ever been patient in his life but instead of pointing this out he opted for whining. “ _Fifteen_ minutes still? Now I understand why you asked me if I had the whole day free, you’re taking me to the North Pole!”

Keith shook his head in exasperation, Lance could feel the motion through his legs. He sat up. “You know I would be less annoying if you just told me where we’re going. But _no_ you’ve gotta be all mysterious and- Whoa!”

Lance had not been prepared for the sight that awaited him when he looked up. A tall mountain side with trees climbing halfway up before giving way to earthly hues of grey and brown. A snowy top, when he looked even further up. Jotun, the mountain that resided in the center of Arus and could be seen from anywhere on it, towered before them, much larger than Lance had ever believed it to be.

He had never seen the mountain so close. Nor had anybody else, as far as he knew. No Viking had ever climbed it and returned.

It took Lance a moment to find his words. “Keith, are we-? Where are we going?”

Lance could hear the grin in Keith’s voice. _“Told you it would be cool, didn’t I? Hold on.”_ They had been flying at a constant height since leaving home but now Keith started to pump his wings to ascend.

A thrill ran up Lance’s spine. They were really doing this, then. He grinned. “How far up are we going to go? Are we going to conquer the unconquerable mountain? Keith?”

Keith twisted his neck to look back at him just to show Lance how he rolled his eyes. What a dork. _“Stop bouncing, I’m trying to fly. And yeah, that’s the plan. Unless you start freezing before then. It’s pretty cold up there.”_

“Oh shut up you,” Lance muttered and kicked Keith’s sides lightly. “I’m not going to be stopped by some cold!”

_“Sure thing.”_

Keith had been right. It was pretty cold when they finally landed. Actually, it was freezing. Luckily the dragon ran warm and Lance could steal some of his body heat.

It was still some ways to the top from where they had landed but Keith had gotten pretty winded from the long flight up here. Apparently, the air was too thin to carry them properly. Lance agreed that the dragon deserved a break. Besides, he could do with some walking, his butt felt like stone.

Lance slid off of Keith’s back and landed knee deep in the snow. Lance huffed. Geez, this was going to be a rough climb. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do it, though, he was determined to reach the peak today.

Lance let his eyes wander about the mountainside while he let Keith catch his breath. Even at this altitude, there were still some dwarf birches and gnarly shrubs hanging on to life, but most of the scenery was bare stone and dirt or covered by snow.

“This is amazing,” he wondered out loud.

Keith seemed happy to hear this. _“Just wait till you see the view from the top, though. Let’s go.”_

There was only about fifteen meters of distance to climb, but it soon became clear that Lance was at a serious disadvantage. Keith had double the amount of feet and didn’t get chilled by the cold, while Lance, well. The number of times he slipped and ended up face first in the snow was embarrassingly high. Keith seemed to enjoy his suffering, though, as he kept letting out these little snorts every time it happened.

It would still have been entirely incorrect to say that Lance wasn’t having a good time. Just the scenery alone ensured that he was enjoying the experiece. Add to that the thrill and challenge of adventure with a friend, and yeah, Lance was living.

They were about ten meters from the summit when Keith turned to look at him with a wicked look in his eyes. _“Bet I can beat you to the top.”_ And he was off.

Lance let out an inhumane yell and barreled after the dragon, all of his stamina magically replenished. Keith tended to have that kind of an effect on him sometimes.

The last ten meters turned out to be a real problem for both of them individually. Well, for Keith the biggest obstacle might have been the screaming boy hanging from his tail but that was neither here nor there. After fifteen minutes of wrestling and several well-aimed snowballs from Lance– he wasn’t called the sharpshooter for nothing– when neither of them had yet made it, Lance decided it was for the best to propose a truce if he wanted to ever see the top at all. 

He let out an exaggerated sigh and let go of Keith’s tail. To his joy, the dragon, not having expected the weight pulling him back to disappear, tumbled face-first into the snow, sending up a white puff. Lance cackled.

He walked up to Keith and pat him on the shoulder. “There there. Maybe we should just walk up the rest of the way. You seem tired after all that flying. I wouldn’t want you to overwork yourself.”

Keith, face out of snow, looked at Lance dubiously. _“I don’t think you’re being sincere.”_ He blew a puff of smoke from his nose and narrowed his eyes. _“But fine. Whatever. It’s a tie.”_

“Cool. I won, though.”

Keith scoffed his eyes but Lance could see him smiling.

Jotun’s peak was better than Lance could ever have imagined. He could see  _everything_ from up there.

On the side they came from, forest, meadows, and, as a tiny speck in the distance, Arus. But Lance wasn’t looking there for long. He had never seen the other side of the island like this. Different forests, hills and fjords, unexplored highlands covered in snow.

Lance turned a full circle and let out a small laugh. All of Arus, right there for him to see.

Keith was standing at his side, looking extremely proud of himself. Lance could give that to him, the dragon had every right to feel proud. This was beyond incredible.

“Keith?”

The dragon perked up at the sound of his name. _“You like it?”_

“Dude,” Lance laughed, “I love it. I’ve never seen anything so…” he gestured to everything around them. “This. Have you been here before.”

Keith nodded. _“Yeah, once. Actually…”_ he trailed off and started making his way to a pile of rocks a little ways away. Lance followed.

Keith spent a while assessing the rocks. There was nothing even remotely interesting about them. Just shapes covered in snow and ice. “What are you doing?”

Keith glanced at him. _“Do you have your knife with you?”_ Okay, that was a non sequitur.

“Yeah, I have a pocket-knife. Why do you-?”

Lance only got a quick warning of _“Step back!”_ before Keith was spewing fire at the rocks. Lance yelped and scrambled back. After two weeks of dragon training, he had adopted a mild distaste for sudden bursts of flames. His missing left eyebrow could attest to that.

Keith stopped acting like an angry campfire for a moment and peered at the rocks. Then he went right back to it.

“What are you even doing?” Lance demanded. He had thought this trip was to enjoy the scenery or something but now Keith was turning into a pyromaniac? Maybe this was his way to relieve stress? Was Keith stressed?

Keith didn’t answer him, just stepped back after seemingly finishing with his thing. Lance looked at the rocks now uncovered from under the snow. They were rock-shaped, rock-colored and completely rock-like in every other aspect. Except…

“What’s that?” Lance stepped closer to take a better look. A series of four parallel lines ran across the side of one of the rocks, as if it had been scratched by a large cat. ...Or a dragon. Lance turned to look at Keith. “Did you do that?”

Keith hummed an affirmative.

“Why?” 

The dragon glanced at him. _“I just. I flew up here in the first week I came here. I just wanted to leave some sort of a mark. Or something.”_

Lance hummed in thought and looked at the marks again. He still had no clue about why or when Keith had arrived on Arus but… “So does this mean it’s your island now?” he asked instead of trying to probe Keith about any of that. The dragon would tell him when he was ready.

Keith seemed confused. _“What?”_

“Well, there aren’t really any other dragons on Arus, right. Not any that live here long-term, anyway. So is it your island if you’ve marked the highest part of the land?”

_“No? How would anyone know this scratch is here in the first place?”_

Lance rolled his eyes. “Hey, it’s not like I know how dragons work, is it? Maybe you could sense that kind of stuff or something!”

_“Dragons could sense a scratched rock up on a mountain..?”_ Keith turned to look at him in. Lance could sense the raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, like, I dunno, telepathy. I’m not ruling anything out of the realm of possibility anymore!”

Keith blinked. _“I guess that’s fair. Come on, get your knife.”_

Lance was confused. “What? Why?”

Keith was looking at him weirdly. Like he thought Lance was acting oddly instead of him. _“So you can make a mark too. Your nails are weak as shit.”_

Lance gaped at the dragon. Keith wanted him to… just leave his mark up here. In the most unreachable place on Arus, right next to Keith’s like it was no big deal. Something warm rushed up the back of Lance’s neck.

Keith sure was something.

Lance pulled his knife from his belt but dangled it between his fingers in uncertainty. “I dunno if that’s a good idea. I didn’t really _do_ anything to get here… Besides, you’re the one who got here first, it’s kind of your thing…”

_“Well you’re the first human up here so it can be your thing too. Just do it.”_ Keith’s expression turned sly. _“I know you want to.”_

Dammit, Lance did want to.

Tossing his hesitancy to the winds, he gripped his knife tighter and crouched down next to the boulder. It had probably been easy for Keith to leave his mark, but Lance quickly found that carving into frozen stone with a knife was not all that easy. He set to make a long line next to Keith’s so that together their marks made a shaky V-shape.

Lance glanced to his left while working and found Keith staring at his knife in deep thought. Lance glanced back at the knife. “Hunk made this knife for me, you know.” Keith’s eyes turned to him in rapt attention. “He made it years ago, when we were like, uhhh, eight or something. It was one of the first things he made in a real blacksmith’s workshop. Nobody let me even near an anvil when I was that young but Hunk was a special case.”

_“Are you saying they let you near an anvil now?”_ Keith’s joking tone made him gasp in mock offence.

Wait. It had happened again. “Keith?”

_“Hmmm?”_

Lance paused his knife and turned to look at the dragon. “How… How do you know what an anvil is?” It had happened a few times before, too. Keith referencing or understanding something that Lance just couldn’t figure out how a dragon could know. Dragons didn’t have anvils, did they? Or wells, or kitchens or any of the other human things Keith seemed to have full knowledge about even before Lance mentioned any of them.

Keith’s mood immediately turned sour, Lance could see in his expression. This was a conversation his friend didn’t want to have, then.

Keith didn’t say anything, just stared at the carvings with his nose scrunched up in annoyance.

“Keith?” Lance prodded.

The dragon’s eyes met his. He sighed. _“I just know, alright? I can’t remember.”_

If it hadn’t been for the choppy tone of voice and peeved mood Lance might have believed him. Now though, it was obviously a lie. Lance frowned, unsure if asking further questions would make Keith mad. He glanced back at the rock.

Two marks, made by a Viking and a dragon, sat innocently next to one another. _Lance and Keith were here_ , they said, though the message could only be deciphered by the two of them. In a few weeks it would be impossible to tell that they weren’t originally made together.

Lance decided to leave the questions for a later date. They were supposed to be having fun right now.

He stood up and sheathed his knife. Hands on his hips, he looked at the rock. “I like it!” He offered Keith a grin to which the dragon immediately answered with a hesitant one of his own. An argument avoided, then.

Lance stretched his back and rubbed his arms. It was starting to get pretty chilly by now. His-nose-was-frozen-shut-and-he-had-to-breathe-through-his-mouth kind of chilly. Keith didn’t need to know that, though.

Keith looked at their marks and huffed. He tried to hide it but Lance could tell he was pleased looking at them. _“We should head back soon. Before you freeze to death.”_ Ah. So he noticed, then.

“Nuh-uh. I’m all good, dragon boy. I’m made of harder stuff than-” Lance sneezed. In hindsight, having a wrestling match in the snow might not have been the best idea. Lance had been fine at first but now the snow clinging to his clothes and hair had been melted by his body heat and he was wet all over. And the water was starting to freeze again, so.

Lance wasn’t all that warm at the moment.

Keith gave him a sympathetic look and offered his shoulder. _“Come on. Let’s go.”_

“I thought you couldn’t fly this high up,” Lance wondered but climbed onto the dragon nonetheless.

_“With your weight, I can’t fly up. I can always fly down.”_

“Well, that is not reassuring in the slightest, you know. Isn’t that just falling?”

Keith chirped out a laugh and jumped into the air. They were past the edge of the summit in a single wing stroke, and Keith dove. Lance was once again dazzled by the view, though he didn’t have much time to enjoy it.

Keith had nosedived with Lance from high altitudes a few times before but this was different. All those times before they had been diving from the open sky above the ocean. Now though… Keith chose a route where the mountainside was the steepest and never strayed over five meters away from it. This was the first time there was something stationary to compare their speed to.

It was fast. It was so fast Lance could hardly contain his screams. And Keith kept picking up speed, too. They were zipping past and weaving around obstacles, and every moment Lance was afraid Keith would fly straight into a surprising ledge. Or a tree. And then they’d die.

Everything was a blur around Lance, but Keith didn’t seem to have any difficulties with navigating.  He kept shifting and adjusting their course, making millisecond decision to go around something this way or slow down just a bit to avoid hitting into something else. One time they flew so so close to a bump in the mountain that they set a puff of snow flying everywhere.

Lance’s face was so cold he couldn’t even move his jaw anymore.

At first, Lance thought that Keith was laughing at his terror. He realised pretty quickly that that wasn’t the case at all. Keith was laughing because he was having fun. This, diving from the sky and zigzagging around obstacles that could easily kill him if he made even the slightest misjudgement, this was exactly something that Keith would find thrilling. And it showed. Lance added his wavery voice to Keith’s happy whoops which seemed to make the dragon push for even faster speeds

Lance pressed his face into Keith’s neck for warmth and let the sensations of cold wind beating his body and screaming in his ears wash over him. He could feel every twitch and pull of Keith’s muscles in his body as the dragon adjusted their fall.

It felt like it was over in mere seconds. Suddenly Keith was easing into a smooth glide and slowing down. Lance didn’t raise his head from the dragon’s neck yet, trying to defrost his face first.

Keith took a minute to come down from his high and catch his breath. Then, _“Lance? You okay?”_

An incomprehensible whine escaped Lance’s lips. His tongue was not cooperating.

_“Lance!?”_ Keith seemed panicked now, it made Lance giggle. Well, as well as it was possible to giggle without moving your face, anyway.

“Mmm fine,” he mumbled into Keith’s neck.

Apparently, Keith wasn’t convinced by that. Lance felt two sets of thuds as Keith landed on the ground. Lance peeked up from Keith’s neck to see the dragon craning his neck to peer at him with a worried look in his eyes.

That helped him clear his head some. “Keeeith,” he groaned. “I think I left my brain up on the mountain.” He tried to push his body to a proper sitting position but instead his arms turned to noodles and he ended up on the ground. “Oops.”

 

About ten minutes later Lance found himself sitting in front of a rather shitty campfire Keith had managed to pull together. It felt like his whole body was slowly thawing, and his toes had just hit the needle stage of warming up, which was less than pleasant.

Keith was freaking out. He kept hovering around Lance, unsure what to do to help. Lance found it pretty funny, the dragon clearly wasn’t used to handling cold, being a fire-blooded lizard and all.

“I still can’t believe that happened.” Lance waved a hand toward Jotun, standing tall and grey in the distance. “I was there. We were there, Keith! Hunk would lose his mind over this!” Suddenly all of Lance’s enthusiasm disappeared in a puff. Hunk wasn’t going to hear about this. Neither was Pidge.

Keith was such an amazing person, and Lance hated him having to be hidden and constantly alone like this. He hated having to keep things from his best friends, who he was sure would get along with Keith just fine had he been human.

_“I’m sorry,”_ Keith said. He was looking at the ground, clenching and unclenching his claws in thought.

Lance was confused. “Wait. What? Sorry for what?”

Keith glanced up at him. _“I know you don’t like to keep things from your friends. I keep-”_

Lance interrupted him, “Keith! Stop that. None of this is your fault. You’re not making me do anything, alright?”

_“But you have to lie to them because of me! I don’t want you to harm your actual friendships because of me.”_ Keith looked so small at that moment it made Lance’s heart squeeze.

Lance wanted to wrap Keith up in a hug. No, he was going to wrap Keith up in a hug.

Keith jolted when Lance’s arms wound around his neck and squeezed softly. Lance pressed his face into the warm scales and mumbled, “You are an actual friend for me, Keith. It’s not your fault my other friends wouldn’t understand this. I want to be here, you understand?”

Keith released a slow breath through his nostrils. Lance could feel his shivering.

“Keith, you understand?”

_“Okay.”_ It was a soft voice, almost a whisper, but Lance was so glad to hear it. He wound his arms tighter.

“Good.”

They spent several minutes like that, until Keith started to shift uncomfortably. _“Lance? Um?”_

Lance smiled against the dark scales. “You’re warm.”

 

***

 

Hunk had been Lance’s best friend as long as he could remember. Even in his earliest memories, Hunk was there. He was there when Lance got stuck in a tree when he was five and Hunk had to run back to the village to get help. He was there trying to make Lance feel better when he was so sick he had terrible fever visions and thought the world was ending when he was six. And Lance had been there when Hunk’s grandpa died in a dragon attack when they were eight.

Hunk was the person who, without a doubt, knew more about Lance than anybody else in the world. And Lance knew the most about Hunk too, that was just how they were. And that’s why he should have expected Hunk to notice he was hiding something big. Heck, he should have been surprised that Hunk hadn’t confronted him about it yet, given how nosy his best friend tended to be.

Pidge was a newer addition to their small group. She had only begun hanging out with the two of them about two years ago, at the time her brother and father had gone on an expedition to an unmapped island far east. And when it had become clear that they weren’t coming back, well, Hunk and Lance had unanimously decided that there was no way she was going to be left alone after that.

Compared to Hunk, Pidge hadn’t known Lance for that long of a time at all but she was a genius mastermind. And when she and Hunk teamed up… Lance was confident that the two of them had more brain power than the rest of the island combined. Himself included, he held no delusions of his own intelligence. Or lack thereof, rather.

The reason why the dream team had let him sneak around in peace for over a month now evaded Lance. Maybe he had assumed they had better things to do than worry about him. Maybe he avoided thinking about the subject altogether, too guilty about hiding things. He should have suspected they were onto him whenever Pidge made snide comments about his new love for nature or Hunk mentioned Lance “not being around yesterday” and gave him a curious look.

He wanted to tell then, he really did. But it was not his secret to share and, while he trusted his friends wholeheartedly he couldn’t be sure how they would react to being introduced to a telepathic lizard.

Not that Keith would ever agree to meeting them anyway.

 

*******

 

“Where were you yesterday?”

Lance peered over the massive pile freshly cleaned linen in his lap to see the person talking to him. As he had been able to tell from the voice, it was Pidge.

She was walking next to him, arms crossed behind her back but Lance could see sharp intent in her eyes. He shifted the textiles in his lap in slight discomfort. This felt like an interrogation, suddenly.

“Um. Why? Was I needed for something? It was my day off.”

Pidge fixed him with a narrow-eyed stare. “Nope. Nothing important. Hunk and I were just looking for you to hang out and stuff. He made this cake he wanted you to taste.”

Lance blinked in surprise. “Oh. Um. Sorry. I have time today, though. After I finish up with Coran, I mean. I think he had years’ worth of undone work that he has decided I gotta do. I agreed to help him _one_ time and suddenly I work for him? Sheesh.” He might have felt slightly guilty for not hanging out with Pidge and Hunk as usual. they were busy with their own stuff though, so he hadn’t thought they had missed him too much. “I’ll try the cake later?”

Pidge hummed. “Oh, it’s all gone now. I’ll see you at lunch, then. Bye!” She was off before Lance had time to stop her. He frowned. Pidge definitely wasn’t a talker like him but this was unusually curt, even for her.

Lance spent the rest of his task worrying over Pidge. Was she okay? Had he missed something? It wasn’t like he had purposefully skipped hanging out with his friends or anything. He just tended to spend free days and most of the free evenings in the forest with Keith. And with the dragon training and now apparently working for Coran added to his schedule, there just wasn’t that much free time anymore. Why had everything happened at the same time? He had basically had nothing to do for months and now he had no time at all to grow bored.

Lance dumped the clean linens in the room Coran had told him to and climbed up to the library to look for the man himself. Both the library and the man who looked after it had become familiar to him by now, after several weeks of running errands for Coran. He had even befriended Coran’s secret library cat Daisy.

Coran was working on some papers when Lance entered. He looked like he was not enjoying himself.

“I finished with the sheets,” Lance told him, silently praying there would be no more work for him to do.

Coran looked up from his papers and clapped his hands together. “Ah! I see, excellent. Now-” Dangit. “-I was wondering if you’d have more drawings to show me. Your skills were quite something.”

Lance blinked in surprise. What now? Hadn’t they given up on trying to identify his dragon? He scratched the back of his head. “Uh. I mean I do have my journal with me but…”

Coran motioned for him to come closer. Lance pulled out his journal and opened it to a page with some dragon drawings of it. He wasn’t sure if more drawings of Keith would help Coran recognise him or even if he wanted that to happen anymore. Then again, it didn’t seem like Keith was going to be giving him any proper answers any time soon.

“Here,” he set the book on the table so that Coran could have a better look. The man studied the drawings carefully, humming something to himself, and turned to the next place. Lance tensed up. There wasn’t anything private there per se, it was just…

The next page was full of pictures of Keith too. And the next. And the next. Keith flying. Keith napping in a sunbeam. Keith stretching. Keith looking at Lance with a completely exasperated look as Lance demanded he sit still to be drawn. Lance nervously wrung his hands together as Coran flipped through the pages.

“I, um. I really liked how that one looked so I draw him a lot.” Shit, wrong pronoun! It, Keith was supposed to be an ‘it’ here! Lance gulped at his slip up but Coran didn’t seem to notice.

The man closed the book and handed it back to Lance. “I doubt there is anything here I can help you with, but feel free to peruse the library at any time. You might find something interesting, still. Now, I must leave these papers before a bookworm eats through my brain. Oh, it can happen, believe me.”

Coran flounced out of the room, once again leaving Lance more confused than he had been at the start of the conversation. Lance sighed.

There was still some time before lunch so he might as well heed Coran’s suggestion and look through the library. It wasn’t like there was anything to lose, and Keith had decided to stay annoyingly tight-lipped about just about anything relating to dragons.  It seemed to be up to Lance to figure out this mystery that was a talking dragon.

 

*******

 

Dragons. They came in hundreds of different shapes and sizes. Some of them liked muffins.

Lance had never seen this many at once before.

“Keith? Are you sure this is a good idea? Remember what happened last time? I almost got eaten!”

They were floating above a tiny island some ways west from Arus. An island with dozens of dragons sunbathing on it. None of them seemed to have noticed them yet, though. Keith had carefully scanned the island before getting even this near. Lance didn’t know what he was looking for but it didn’t help his nerves any.

Keith scoffed. _“You wanted to see dragons, didn’t you? This is the best I can do, since there aren’t any on the island.”_

Lance patted his neck. “Besides you, you mean. But what are those dragons doing? What is this place?”

Keith turned into a downwards glide and Lance yelped. _“They are resting. This is a common rest stop on the way to- somewhere.”_

“Ah,” Lance said knowingly, “more secret dragon lore. I see.”

_“What?”_

“Nothing. So, you’re sure they won’t eat me?”

Keith hummed. _“I guess?”_

Lance screeched. “Keith!” The dragon let out a deep sigh, and Lance froze as dozens of pairs of eyes simultaneously snapped up to look at them. That had been a little bit too loud, maybe. “...oops.”

No turning back now, then. Two dragons clambered out of the way as Keith practically landed on top of them. It was clear that all the dragons had noticed Lance, and were now intently staring at him. Lance shivered. So many glowing eyes.

“Ummm, Keith?”

_“Get down.”_ In regards to getting out of there quickly, getting off of Keith’s back wouldn’t have been Lance’s first choice. But he trusted Keith knew what he was doing. Kind of.

A smallish, red dragon made its way toward them. It narrowed its eyes at Lance and growled low in its throat. Lance gulped. That didn’t seem good. The dragon was a bit larger than Keith, with bright orange eyes. Lance couldn’t discern the kind it was, maybe a mix of some sort.

The other dragons were following in the red one’s wake, surrounding them completely.

Keith, though he was clearly one of the smallest dragons present, wasn’t about to take that, apparently. He curled his body around Lance, wings spread big, and hissed. Lance blinked several times in surprise. Alright. That was happening. 

He had to peek from under Keith’s wing to see what was going on. There was a serious staredown going on between Keith and the red dragon. It lasted so long the other dragons seemed to lose interest and went back to whatever it was they were doing. One particular brownish Zippleback started burrowing into the sand for some reason.

Lance let his eyes move back and forth between Keith and the other dragon’s faces. Keith didn’t seem worried, just determined. But what were they doing? Wait- were they having a conversation? Lance had never really considered how that telepathy thing worked, could Keith do it with just one person at a time or something? Then did that mean that the red dragon was like Keith? Were all of them?

Finally, the red dragon seemed to relax. Keith relaxed too, straightening his body and stepping a bit away from Lance. Lance almost fell down, he had unconsciously pressed tightly to Keith’s side while waiting. It had felt safe. Now, without Keith’s wings to cover him anymore, the dragons were curiously eyeing him again, though it was with less hostility now.

Keith nudged him forward with his shoulder. _“It’s fine now. You have to greet her, she’s the boss in this flock.”_

“Greet her? Is she-?”

_“Not like me. Just let her smell you and stuff.”_

Right. And stuff. Lance could do that, no problem. He took a few tentative steps toward the dragon. Keith, probably sensing his anxiety, followed right beside him. Lance was grateful for that, the experience of being kidnapped still fresh in his mind.

He sent Keith a grateful smile and advanced the rest of the way until he was standing right in front of the red dragon. She gave him a curious once-over and, as Keith had predicted, sniffed him.

Lance laughed nervously and the dragon’s pupils narrowed into thin slits. She didn’t make any move toward him, though, just released a low chirrup from her throat and pulled back. Then she stretched her winds and trotted away to chat with a flat-nosed orange dragon.

Lance gaped. “That was it? That was all it took?”

Keith grinned. _“Yup, you are free to hang around this flock now. What do you want to-”_

Lance peered over Keith’s shoulder to see what had made the dragon to stop talking so suddenly. There, he saw the cutest little creature ever. A tiny grey dragon, obviously a baby, had bounced on Keith’s tail and was now kneading it with its paws, chirping happily. It had wide green eyes and adorable little horns growing from its head. Lance awwed. Keith, rude as ever, yanked his tail away which caused the baby dragon to tumble on the ground nose first.

“Keith!” Lance gasped in shock, but the dragonling was already up. It released a heartwarming battle cry and bounced after Keith’s tail again. It started gnawing on one of Keith’s tail fins with a content look on its face.

Lance cooed, earning him a dry look from Keith. Not that the dragon fooled Lance in the slightest, he could clearly see the amused crinkle in Keith’s eyes when he pulled his tail away again and the little dragon chased after it.

Lance watched with interest as Keith lured the dragon close and then unceremoniously pushed it to Lance’s feet with his paw. _“You wanted to meet dragons. There, take that one.”_

The dragonling curiously sniffed Lance’s pant leg, apparently not at all weirded out by the fact that he was clearly not a dragon. Lance knelt down and offered his hand for the dragon to sniff, which it did, scrunching its note adorably. Lance's tenseness disappeared. It was hard to feel nervous about a dragon this small.

He let out a surprised yelp as the dragonling decided to scale his body by sinking its claws into his shirt. It came face to face with him, stared at his eyes for a bit and then booped his nose with its own.

_“That’s a familiar greeting. I guess that one hasn’t learned about stranger danger yet,”_ Keith supplied from the side.

Lance snorted at the familiar expression coming from a dragon. The dragonling watched his face with wide eyes. “Dragons have stranger danger too? That’s funny.”

The dragonling’s hold on his shirt suddenly failed and Lance had to snatch the thing from the air to prevent it from smacking against the hard ground. He ended up with an armful of squirming and wailing dragon. Keith laughed at the sight, and Lance couldn’t help but grin in response. Keith’s laughs weren’t all that common, after all.

_“You look ridiculous.”_

“You mean adorable. There you go.” Lance carefully set the baby dragon on the ground where it promptly began trying to scale his foot again. Lance scratched its forehead. He let his eyes wander around the island for a bit. A few of the dragons were watching them but most of them didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

Lance glanced back at the dragonling by his feet. “Doesn’t this guy have any parents? Are they just fine with a human playing with it?”

_“The whole flock is its parents. Dragons don’t really have the kind of smaller family units humans do. ...Most of them anyway.”_

Oh. That was interesting. Lance hadn’t known that. “But do they really trust me to not hurt it? Just like that?” Lance knelt down and scratched the baby dragon’s nose. It didn’t seem at all dragon-like to allow a human anywhere near their young. Well, Lance knew by now that he didn’t know that much about dragons in the first place.

Keith offered him a half shrug. _“I mean. They’re familiar with me, so they trust you’ll be fine as well. They are watching us though, so don’t do anything stupid. I’m not sure I could fight them all off.”_

Lance snorted. “Oh, you mean you can’t fight like forty dragons by yourself. Weak.” Then, because something else in what Keith had just said had caught his attention. “They’re familiar with you?”

Keith made his Lance-is-asking-for-too-much-information face but answered nonetheless. _“Yeah. I, um, came here with them. Originally, when I left-- yeah.”_ He looked away quickly, a common habit of his.

Lance blinked. That was a lot more information than he had anticipated getting. But this wasn’t the right place to demand more answers about Keith’s mysterious past. He needed to lighten the mood somehow. “So these are your secret dragon buddies? And you are only introducing us now?”

Keith gave him a dry look, a much more serious one than Lance had hoped for. _“They are animals, Lance. Smart animals, but still. They aren’t my ‘buddies’.”_ Keith’s voice wasn’t exactly sad, it was more… disappointed. Lance's gut twinged. Keith _was_ lonely, had been for years.

There was a lot to unpack in his words but Lance would have to do that later. Right now, Keith clearly needed cheering up. And, first of all, “Animals can _totally_ be your friends too! Man, if you told my family dog Bernard that we’re not friends, he would cry. And I would cry too!”

The dragonling had apparently grown tired of their conversation and Lance’s pants, so it launched itself at Keith’s face. Keith, not having been expecting the attack, scrambled back with eyes wide as saucers. Lance cackled. “See? She’s your friend for sure!” He plucked the dragonling from the ground where it had ended up and set it on top of Keith’s head.

Keith rolled his eyes but seemed to lose his mood. The dragonling was curiously swatting at his ears and, okay, it was so cute Lance just about exploded. Keith just grumbled, which the dragonling answered with its own, much more high-pitched and not at all scary growling.

_“It’s a he, by the way. Not a she.”_

Lance frowned and peered at the baby dragon. “How would you tell?”

_“Smell.”_

“Smell?” Lance echoed. “I guess dragons do have a better sense of smell than humans do.”

Keith snorted. _“Yeah, a lot better. Human noses are terrible.”_

Lance pouted. “My nose is perfectly fine, thank you. Hey, what do I smell like, if your nose is so good?”

Keith thought about this for a moment. _“Fish.”_

“I do _not_ smell like fish, you nasty!” He swatted at Keith for good measure, which was not a good idea considering he still had a baby dragon on his head. He realised this mid-motion and ended up just gently bumping Keith’s nose. “I wanted to do that.”

_“Sure.”_

 

***

  

“Do you think they’ll find it?”

Lance didn’t answer right away, just stared at the two ships gliding further and further away from the island, carrying a big portion of their warriors with them. He sighed.

“Not really. Not this soon anyway. There are hundreds of islands here, how could they find the right one just like that.” That thought calmed him down somewhat. Most of the dragons out there weren’t like Keith but he knew they weren’t _evil_. The idea of a bunch of Vikings rushing in and destroying their homes didn’t sit well in Lance’s stomach.

Hunk gave him a sideways glance and hummed. “Do you wish they’d find it?” There was nothing accusing in Hunk’s tone, just an innocent question, but his words still made Lance freeze.

How was he supposed to answer that? He turned to look at Hunk who was staring at him with a thoughtful expression. Lance cleared his throat and fumbled for an answer. “I-”

“Hunk chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. I get it.”

_What?_

“What?” Lance croacked. Did Hunk somehow know? What would he do if Hunk had figured out? What would _Keith_ do?

Hunk’s eyebrows rose slightly at Lance’s tone of voice. He stared into Lance’s eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Lance. Calm down. It’s obvious that you’re not as enthusiastic about this dragon thing as you were before. It’s fine.” Hunk stepped back a little and pursed his lips in thought. “I mean, I really should have expected it. You aren’t someone who would enjoy hurting things, even if it’s dragons. You’re nice like that.”

Lance didn’t know what to say. Hunk wasn’t… mad? Or disappointed? Well, he obviously didn’t know the whole truth about what was going on but still…

“I don’t really like it either but… I guess I can see why you’d be more distressed about hurting things like that. We aren’t exactly nice to the dragons, so.”

Lance finally found his tongue. “But all those years I said I’d become a dragon hunter. You’re just… okay with that being all a lie?”

Hunk shrugged. “I mean, I know you weren’t _lying_ when you said all those things. You just decided it wasn’t your thing when you had the chance to actually try.”

Lance let out a dry laugh. “That doesn’t sound good.” He looked at the ships in the distance again, now far away to only be tiny dots against the dark ocean. Off to kill dragons. “Hunk?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think they’re all bad? Dragons?”

Hunk thought for a while. Lance held his breath.

“No.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think they’re like… mosquitoes.”

Lance gave him a flat stare. “What.”

“No, really. They’re both just trying to feed themselves and hurt us in the process. Like, mosquitoes aren’t _bad_ , they’re just animals! But they don’t go well with humans so we don’t like them. Same with dragons, except they are bigger and deadly and spew fire! They just want the sheep, I think. Which doesn’t go well with us because those are our sheep and we need them too. Or something like that.” Hunk frowned.

Lance gawked. Since when had Hunk been this rational about things? (Always, probably, but Lance had never been in the right mindset to actually talk about this stuff before.)

He didn’t know what to say. Hunk’s words made him feel so much better about everything he’d been holding inside. Maybe he wasn’t completely alone with this stuff, after all.

Instead of voicing any of this out loud, however, the only thing he thought to say was “Don’t say that to Pidge, she would gnaw your bones.”

Hunk sighed. “She wouldn’t. She’s smart, just a bit…”

“Angry.”

“Yeah.”

 

***

 

Lance flipped open the book and set in on his lap so that Keith could see. The dragon inched his nose closer to take a peek.

“So,” Lance started, “I’m not supposed to have this. Coran specifically told me not to take books out of the library.”

_“How improper of you, stealing books like a heathen.”_

Lance giggled at Keith’s sass, which earned him a snort from the dragon. “Yeah, I’m having a terrible phase, stealing things and breaking rules left and right.”

Keith gasped in feigned shock. He spoke in a monotone voice, _“Oooh, how scandalous. I am so shocked. How can you do such things?”_ Lance laughed and Keith grinned at him. He made a vague motion toward the book in Lance’s lap. _“So. What’s this?”_

“This,” Lance said and flipped to the first page, “is the most ridiculous thing you’ll ever hear. ‘How to efficiently get rid of dragons in a natural yet achievable way’  It’s a self-help book for, get this, every viking from toddler to senior, except for Käre Geitirsson who can, according to the author’s note, get in a fish barrel and roll into the ocean where he belongs.”

Keith blinked several times. _“What.”_

Lance grinned. “Listen up, champ, because you’re gonna have your mind blown. You ready?”

_“Sure.”_

Lance cleared his throat and began to read. “Dragons. How to get rid of? Easy. Step one: Cabbages. Dragons are scared of cabbages. Now Keith,” Lance lifted his eyes from the book and looked at the dragon, “how do you feel about cabbages?”

Keith looked at the book. Then at Lance. Then back at the book. He seemed mystified. _“I mean, I don’t particularly like them but. Lance, what is this book?”_

Lance cackled. “Oh, it gets weirder.” He flipped past several pages.

“Step twenty-two: Ask the trees. Politely.

“Dragons and trees communicate in secret tones. However, no human can speak the dragons’ tongue unless cursed with the pox. Trees are trilingual and speak both human and dragon. If your favorite tree favours you, it should gladly tell the dragon to LEAVE PROMPTLY for you. And look, there is a picture.”

Keith peered at the picture. It depicted a tiny dragon being told off by a tree with a gangly face. _“Wait, Lance, look step twenty-three. Awake the slumbering deity of fire with a sacrifice during the new moon.”_

Lance almost choked on air. “WHAT? Oh my gods I didn’t read that one before. _What the fuck,_ Keith, who made up this stuff?”

_“Don’t ask me, it’s from_ your _village, not mine.”_

Lance gasped when a realisation hit him. “Gods, Keith. What if the person who wrote this was someone I’m related to? What if they were one of my great great great grandparents or something!”

_“I mean, that might explain some things.”_

“Nooo, Keith, this is serious!” Lance wailed and threw himself at the dragon. “I don’t want to have a relative who awoke a god with a sacrifice!”

Keith’s face did a weird scrunch, and then the dragon was cackling on the ground. Lance gaped as Keith snorted loudly, and then he was laughing too.

 

Some hours later the two of them were lying in the grass on a small hill Keith had taken them to. Lance was doodling flowers and Keith was half-napping next to him.

Lance’s rendition of a heath violet was utterly destroyed when Keith sneezed, causing Lance to startle and draw a thick line across the page. Lance turned to look at Keith who was looking all kinds of harrowed, nose crumbled and eyes wide. He sneezed again.

Lance giggled. “Are you okay? Those were some mighty sneezes.”

Keith grumbled and rubbed his nose with his front paws. Then he reassembled his wings and plopped down in the grass on his side. _“Ugh.”_

A comfortable silence fell over then again. Lance tried to salvage his flowers but it was a lost cause. He started a new drawing of Keith instead. At this point, he could’ve easily drawn the dragon from memory but having a reference was always good. Besides, he could’ve hardly imagined the calm, thoughtful look Keith had on his face right now as he looked at the stars.

Lance looked up as well. The dark was already settling in, so a few stars were visible. He could see the brightly shining lodestar in the north, as well as the Great Wagon below it. Those were the only two he could remember, but he knew Hunk could’ve named all of them that had names to know.

Lance glanced at Keith and thought back to his conversation with Hunk. “I wish you could meet my friends.”

Keith looked at him, startled.

Lance flopped onto his back and stared at the sky. “Pidge and Hunk. You would like them, I think. I mean, if they wouldn’t…”

Keith looked at him sharply. _“Want to kill me?”_

Lance grimaced. “I’m pretty sure Hunk wouldn’t, not if he knew you weren’t going to do anything. He’s not like that. And Pidge… She’s super smart but she has her reasons to hate dragons. But if she let herself give you a chance… She might change her mind.” Was he trying to reassure himself or Keith, he was not sure.

Keith curled into a ball. _“Lance. What brought this on?”_ He sounded defensive, like he so often did when Lance brought up something he didn’t want to talk about.

Lance wanted to get through to him this time, though. “I think you’re lonely.” He raised his hand to stop Keith before the dragon had time to object. “Keith. Tell me honestly, when was the last time you talked to someone besides me.”

Keith didn’t look at him. _“I like being alone.”_

“But you like having company too. When was it?” Lance pressed.

Keith sat in silence for a good ten seconds. Then he quietly mumbled, _“...Two years ago.”_

Lance sighed. He had been expecting something like that but it still made his heart squeeze uncomfortably. Though Keith was able to survive alone, he _needed_ company. It was clear by the way he got excited when Lance asked him questions about his discoveries and by the endless curiosity he seemed to possess whenever Lance talked about his family and friends and the village. The way he intently listened to Lance’s ramblings for hours on end.

Keith needed to understand that this was not good for him. “Keith. You shouldn’t be alone.”

Keith fixed him with a piercing glare. _“But I’m not. I have you, don’t I?”_ It sounded like Keith’s words were supposed to be harsh but they came out softer, smaller. Lance sat up to properly look at him.

“Yeah. You do.” He wanted Keith to always be sure of that. “But having just one friend isn’t good. I can’t be here all the time! Besides…”

_“Lance,”_ Keith cut in, sounding annoyed _“where are you going with this?”_

Did Lance even know himself? He had briefly considered this last night after the conversation with Hunk. He took a deep breath. “I want you to meet Hunk and Pidge. Or maybe just Hunk, first.” He held his breath as Keith’s nostrils flared.

_“No.”_

Well, that went about as well as expected. “Keith-”

_“No, Lance.”_

There was something tight in Keith’s voice. But he wouldn’t tell Lance why he was so against this, so against telling him anything. This was just one more thing Lance wasn’t allowed to see. Suddenly, it made his blood boil. “Why not? Keith, you are lonely? Why won’t you even try?”

Keith puffed up his wings in frustration. _“Because! It doesn’t work like that, Lance. I’m a dragon. Humans and dragons hate each other, that’s just how it is. Nothing good comes out when people try to pretend otherwise!”_

Lance flung his arms up. “It works with us, doesn’t it. Or what, are we just pretending too?” The last part was a low blow, and Lance instantly realised it after the words had left his mouth.

He didn’t have time to take the words back, though. Keith’s eyes narrowed and his expression turned into something painful that twisted Lance’s insides. Without a word, Keith spread his wings and was off before Lance could as much as open his mouth to speak.

Lance was left gaping at the empty sky, no sight of a dragon at all. “Keith!” he yelled but only his own voice echoed back. Had he just..? Keith had just left him here, gods knew how far away from home. _Lance_ had made Keith leave.

He cursed and pressed his hands into tight fists. Why had he done that? Why had he chosen to demand answers and pressure Keith like that, he knew the dragon would get distressed about it. Why had he been so stupid?

According to Keith, the dragon had been alone for two years now so it was natural for him to be wary. And Lance didn’t even know what kind of people he had been around before then. Maybe Keith hadn’t had anyone to talk to in a long long time. No matter how good friends Lance thought they were, they had only known each other for a month now, and that wasn’t long enough for him to expect Keith to share everything just like that. He knew that.

He knew that but… He just had really really wanted Keith to meet his friends. He wanted Keith to have more friends and… He had wanted Hunk and Pidge to know so that he wouldn’t have to lie to them anymore.

Lance felt terrible. Hadn’t he specifically decided to let Keith tell him things only when ready? And now he had ruined everything because he couldn’t handle some guilt.

What was going to happen now? As far as Lance knew, Keith didn’t have anything to keep him here besides Lance, and now Lance had let him down too. If Keith decided to leave… Even if Keith just decided to not go to the clearing again, Lance would have no way to find him. He would have no way to apologise and make things right.

Lance sniffled and began his long trek home.

 

***

 

Pidge was waiting for him, sitting on a fence at the edge of the village, when Lance arrived hours later, well after dark.

“You better thank me,” they hollered after catching sight of Lance emerging from the forest. “I told your brother you’re helping me with a science experiment tonight so- Whoa, are you okay?”

Lance was not okay. His ankle was aching again and, though the tears had run out, he still felt terrible all over.

Pidge took his silence as an answer and grabbed him by the arm. “C’mon. We’re going to Hunk’s.”

Lance, too tired to object to anything and in a desperate need of a hug, followed them wordlessly.

Hunk was sitting by his dining table, reading something in the low light of his lantern, when Pidge pushed the door to his house open. He looked up when they entered, his smile instantly transforming into a worried frown when he spotted Lance’s somber face.

“What’s going on?” Hunk asked, rising to his feet.

Lance took the fews steps remaining between them and fell into Hunk’s arms with a sniffle. Hunk immediately wrapped him in a tight hug and began stroking his back. Lance buried his face in Hunk’s shoulder.

Hunk was warm and solid, just what Lance needed right now. No matter how crazy everything around him was, Lance could always trust Hunk to be there for him. That was why it hurt so much to hide things from him.

After a few moments, Hunk began manoeuvring them toward the sofa in the room, still not letting go of Lance. Pidge had moved over to the stove at some point and appeared to be making tea. Lance’s eyes started to water when he realised just how good friends he had. How much he needed them.

Slowly, Lance inched back from Hunk’s arms. Pidge appeared in front of him and pressed a warm cup into his hands. Lance breathed deeply to inhale the steam. He hadn’t even realised how cold he was.

The three of them sat there in silence for a while, Lance sipping his tea, eyes fixed to the wooden floor boards under his feet. Finally, Hunk broke the silence.

“Lance.” Lance winced. “What happened?” Hunk’s words were soft but firm. They were demanding an answer.

Lance didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what he could possibly say without bringing up Keith. And he wasn’t going to break that trust again, not even if Keith had left for good and it wouldn’t really matter anymore.

“Does whatever it is that happened now have something to do with whatever has been keeping you preoccupied for weeks now?” Pidge asked. Lance’s breath caught in his throat and he tensed. Pidge sighed. “Yeah, we have noticed. You weren’t really subtle or anything. We-”

“Pidge,” Hunk interrupted them, frowning slightly. “Not so fast. But Lance, they’re right.” Lance glanced up at Hunk’s face, then immediately back down. He understood why Keith tended to avoid eye contact now. It was scary to look at someone’s face when you wanted to hide something. The thought of Keith squeezed his heart and he left out an unconscious sigh.

Hunk pressed a warm hand on his shoulder, bringing him back to the present. “I don’t know what you’re hiding, and you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, but we know there is something.” Hunk paused in thought. “I thought it might have been a good thing since you’ve been more smiley lately, but…”

“Now I’m like this,” Lance mumbled toward the floor. His voice was scratchy and stuffy and he cringed when hearing it. Sounding like that wouldn’t make his case any better in his friends’ eyes. Not that there was much to hide anyway, looking like he did.

“Yeah,” Hunk sighed. “Lance. Lance, please look at me.” Grudgingly, Lance did. Hunk’s eyes were filled tp the brim with worry. They made Lance squirm. “Something is going on with you, and- and you can talk to us, okay.”

“We won’t tell anybody, however weird it is,” Pidge piped in from their seat. “Promise.”

Hunk nodded eagerly at their words. “Yeah. You’re our friend and we just want to help you. You can trust us.”

Trust. Lance felt so small inside in that moment. He was sure he could trust his friends, but his friends couldn’t trust him. Not anymore. He wanted to tell them the truth but then he would be breaking he would be breaking Keith’s trust. There were no answers he could see.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry but I can’t-”

A loud wail coming from outside interrupted Lance’s words. It was a sound all the Vikings were accustomed to at this point, and nearly all of them hated it with passion. The dragon horn, announcing that a dragon had been spotted from one of the numerous watch towers surrounding the village.

The sound quietened, leaving Lance, Pidge and Hunk staring at each other with wide eyes. Lance counted seconds in his head. _One, two, three four, five._ The horn blew again.

“Moderate danger,” Pidge muttered. “What’s going on?”

Lance frowned. Moderate danger meant that there were only a few dragons arriving, or maybe just one.

Just one.

Irrational panic spiked up in Lance’s chest and he jumped to his feet. Keith. Was it Keith? There was no reason why it would have been him but- Lance’s mind was filled with images of Keith being shot down and swarmed by a group of Vikings with sharp weapons. He had to know it wasn’t him. He had to make sure.

Lance was out the door before Hunk or Pidge could stop him, but he could hear them sprinting after him.

The village was full of motion even though the dark had fallen hours ago. They were used to surprise awakenings at this point. Lance sped after two Vikings running toward the east side of Arus, hoping to reach the dragon- Keith- before it was too late.

Lance’s mad dash was halted when somebody grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to a sudden stop. There were many people there, all standing still with their weapons drawn, but nobody was attacking. Lance’s heart was pumping loudly, why was nothing happening? Why wasn’t-

“Look,” Hunk gasped from behind Lance and pointed over their heads, to the direction everybody seemed to be looking.

It took Lance’s eyes a moment to focus on the dark shape but when they did, his breath caught in his throat. It was not Keith.

It was not Keith but it was a dragon. A dragon with half its tail missing and deep gashes running through its wings. From the way it moved it was clear it could hardly stay in the air, pained whines escaping from its throat with every new wing stroke.

The dragon was getting closer to the village, albeit it was slow going, and with every second it became clearer and clearer that something was seriously wrong with it.

It didn’t seem to notice the humans gathered below it, nor did care about the village whatsoever. Its eyes were fixed into something far away. Lance wasn’t sure if whatever it was looking at even existed.

“It’s still bleeding,” someone mumbled when the dragon moved forward so that it was hit by the light of a light tower, making its state more visible.

Lance took in a sharp breath when he was hit with recognition. He had seen this dragon before, just days ago. It was the brownish green Zippleback he had seen napping in the sand on the dragon island with Keith. It was one from the flock Keith was familiar with.

How had it ended up here, lost and ripped to shreds?

There was a creak when somebody drew their bow. A series of hushes went through the crowd. Lance tensed.

He pressed his eyelids shut but it didn’t stop him from hearing the thud and the following scream as the arrow sank into the dragon’s flesh.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, that's not good!


End file.
